Last Friday night Meg and I had a very classic New York City evening of dinner and the theatre. It was an especially special treat...as we got to see one of my very best friends in his first Broadway show, Mr. Drew King. (Oh and the show is On the 20th Century starring the lovely Kristin Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher... even though Drew is our star!)
Drew and his tap dancing quartet stole the show. I mean just look at them:
Can you tell I'm proud? Well, I'm certainly not the only one. I met Drew years ago in tap class. We performed one of our first big NYC gigs together, we became roommates and lived together, and we pounded the pavement together. We bonded over this love for dance, the heartbreak of the hundreds and thousands of hours we were putting into it but not necessarily feeling noticed or successful, and the hope that maybe we'll really get a chance to "make it" someday. We just wanted the opportunity to try. (We also bonded over our love of Bon Iver, red wine, kale, traveling, boy problems...and lots of other "human" things too.) We'd have this cycle of encouraging the other through the rejection of the business- "You can't give up!" "Hard work will pay off!" "Work ethic and kindness don't go unnoticed!" "You're not fat!" "You're not too skinny!" "There will be more auditions!" "They don't hate you!" "YOU'RE being CRAZY!" "You ARE NOT crazy!" " I'm sure you didn't sound that bad!" "Here, have some wine." It goes on... And I'm not the only one who had this relationship with him.
For all you non-theatre-folks out there, we're all kind of in the trenches together. Or at least that's how I'd like to look at it. It's easy to feel isolated and discouraged when you're not caught up in a whirlwind of work opportunities, but if you look around you're in the same boat of a lot of people- the whole 300 people in the holding room at every audition are in that boat or they wouldn't need to be auditioning too. And you can either judge the other people down in that trench with you, compete against them, and give them all the side eye, or you can find a few comrades to survive it with. What do you have to lose in finding some trustworthy and encouraging friends to go through this season of life with? Make it a little less discouraging, a little more comical, and a LOT more joyful.
I've been reading Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things lately, which ranges from advice letters on love, life, loss, relationships, and all things in between. In one letter, she is asked what to do when you're jealous of people who succeed at what you do even if you like them.
“It makes me sick that I don’t feel happy for them, especially when it comes to my close friends, but there it is. When I think of their successes, it only reminds me of what I don’t have.”
Besides putting this lady in her place, Strayed taps into how someone else's success doesn't have to define yours.
“I know it’s not easy being an artist. I know the gulf between creation and commerce is so tremendously wide that it’s sometimes impossible not to feel annihilated by it. A lot of artists give up because it’s just too damn hard to go on making art in a culture that by and large does not support its artists. But the people who don’t give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity. They’ve taken into their hearts the idea that there is enough for all of us, that success will manifest itself in different ways for different sorts of artist, that keeping the faith is more important than cashing the check, that being genuinely happy for someone else who got something you hope to get makes you genuinely happier too.”
When I read this after seeing Drew's show again last week, it made my heart smile. It's the little things. Like being able to be genuinely happy for someone else's success. That's not a little thing, it's actually a big thing. To be able to have joy for others, the ones you've spent years in the trenches with, and to be able to celebrate them. If that doesn't give you hope, I don't know what will. If you don't know Drew, he's one of the most encouraging friends you'll have- and he's got lots of them! He's always busy out supporting someone's show, celebrating a birthday, bringing over a bottle of wine on one of those nights where the extra large bottle of wine in needed, which is why his dream coming true has made so many people incredibly happy and proud. He got his chance! There was a collective gasp heard around the country as his friends far and wide gathered around their TVs to watch our own perform at the Tony Awards. And right at the top of the number, there he is!!! (0:15 below to be exact)
I had the perfect view of the show that Friday night: I looked over Meg's lap to the aisle across from us where Drew's mom was sitting on the edge of her seat surrounded by his aunts and uncles who drove 5 hours that day to see him perform. She may have been beaming more in that seat than Drew was up on that stage on the other side of the orchestra pit tapping his face off. My heart grew three sizes as we all were so proud in that moment. That's joy.
Don't you want to be part of a community like that? No matter what industry you're in? I don't know if my creative endeavors will ever make me millions, but this is the rich life.
notes:
- see On The 20th Century through July 19th and cheer on those porters!
- support theatre and the arts in general and give us jobs :)
- if you want to learn how to tap dance, it will make your life happier and it's never too late to start a new hobby! we suggest BDC or STEPs if you're in NYC!