There's No Business Like Show Business Like No Business I Know

I'm a lucky guy. 

I work in show biz!!!!

"There's no business like no business like show business like no business I know.
Everything about it is appealing!
Everything about it is a show!"

I spent my day today putting together scenery, assembling props, and generally being useful at 30 Rock for NBC, primarily for Saturday Night Live.  I watched Kelly Clarkson soundcheck her spot on SNL ---- and I got paid for it. 

I often think about how hard I've worked to get here.  You know, it's been worth it and I would do it again in a minute.  I have no regrets.

But I know what prices I've paid...

I work when there's work, as many hours as I'm called to do.  

I go through periods of unemployment, simply because that is the nature of the business.  Feast or famine.

But I get to be involved in the world I dreamed about when I was a kid.  And I like it that way.

Sure, I do other things --- but all of them are in the business of show.. 

I direct (whenever I can), I act (rarely) and I write (more and more).  I teach (acting)

I also exercise daily ---- which I love intensely. 

But ONLY when I am working in show business do I feel that I am useful --- and it's been that way since I was 13, from the day I decided I would get involved with this world of work I love so much..

If you feel the way I do, you will find your way into the artform.  I guarantee  it.  Your life might not look like the one you fantasized about when you were a kid but you will find your way.  (Lord knows, mine is nothing like what I intended --- but it's a good life and I am proud of having come as far as I have).

Part of why I enjoy my life now is that I worked very hard when I was younger to prepare myself for this time of my life.  I know how to do the things I wanted to do; act, direct, teach.  Granted, everything is an evolving process ---- but I put in the hours, days, weeks, years to earn my place at the table.

Study

"Oh this learning, what a thing it is!"
Gremio, Act I scene 2



At each juncture in my life, study has made a huge difference to me. In my time, I've been both a student and a teacher. When I was a boy I knew it was my job to study as hard as I could, not to be good but to further myself and my abilities. In early twenties, I lost that clarity of why one should be a good student but I can honestly say I have regained my focus over the last ten years or so.

In my early 40's I finished my B.A. and got two masters degrees, largely focused on the world of classical theater and Elizabethan and Renaissance literature.

I've spent this last period of my life delving into Shakespeare.

I've learned to study his work from both an emotional and mechanical point of view. I learned the difference between a trochee and a spondee, how Billy-boy used metaphor, simile, and rhetoric to make his thunder. I find that the words of this dead white man speak to me in a way I never anticipated. I'm not sure my thoughts about Shakespeare are original, but I do know that the process of my having those thoughts feels essential to my being.

I am also attracted to the world of Shakespearean performance because of the process of STUDY. I believe there is a time and place for everything. There've been times in my life when study and reflection were not important to me. It was of primary importance at those points in my development for me to do.

When one works with Shakespearean text, either as an actor or a director, one must study it ---- but not as a scholar. You have to find a key, a way into the material that isn't intellectual or "up in the head". This process uses the head, the heart, and the gut. One learns to take what one reads into the body and make it beat in your heart...

This work somehow seems vital to my being. I'm not sure why, but I must memorize Shakespeare text on a regular basis simply to feel good. And therefore I do it.

It's my experience that most thoughtful people have something they love so much they are willing to give it their attention, their study. What's yours?