The Practice of Returning

Aug 19

On going back to my very first (now very different!) show, and the ritual of yes.

If you don’t follow me or know my work as a performer, I’m a singer in the middle of a year-long cabaret residency. If you’ve read me before, you do know that I asked for said residency, and that is out of character for me. A friend, a very fierce one, did a residency in New York, and his work is one of my inspirations. When I asked how it came about, he said, I just asked for it, doll. So I did. Now this is not my way; I shy from asking for what I want or need because I don’t like the word no. Anybody else?

This residency, happily, is turning out to be many things I’d hoped for - the opportunity to try new things, collaboration with amazing artists, and just the time to do the work in the first place. A lot of yes. My biggest wish for this project was to create a space where cabaret culture could thrive in the DMV - theater artists could fly solo, musicians could showcase their work, and audiences would come and be in communion on a regular basis with the artists they follow and enjoy around town. And that seems to be happening.

*A still from rehearsal. With my dear Howard Breitbart.*

But it’s also a clarifying face-the-music experience for me, quite literally. I’ve had to get reeeeeally honest about what it takes to pull off a piece of theater as a solo enterprise, and it takes all the things you think - everything from writing a script and choosing the perfect songs that tell the story, to hiring the right musicians, to filling the technical gaps the space is missing. Not to mention raising awareness - social media, publicity, marketing - to sell those tickets. And the thing is, I already knewhow hard this would be and I chose to do it anyway.

I’m not some big organization; I’m just another human with a crazy dream, but I’m also a human who’s been in theater for years - it’s not like I’m new! Rejection - that dreaded “no” - is a way of life, a daily occurrence. The rinse and repeat of it all means I have to put on my big girl pants every day and screw that courage to its sticking place, to mix a metaphor or two. I have to push past those no’s to get to the yesses, again and again and again.

Returning to the practical labor of mounting a show has been good for me - my big girl pants fit a lot better now. But there’s a risk in returning. With the upcoming revival of my very first solo show that became Ingenue You When, I have to ask myself, is it repeating for repeating’s sake? Am I out of ideas? Couldn’t I think of anything else?

It’s said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. And in all seriousness I certainly make no claim on sanity; my mental health struggles are too real and no secret, and my little dream truly is pretty crazy when you think about it. I worry I am falling back into patterns that don’t serve me - hiding, hoping; I can feel their safety. But I must also argue with myself that staying safe is its own kind of insanity. I don’t want to say no to myself; let others have a chance! That might really be nuts.

Here’s the thing: she’s a great little show, my Ingenue You When - a lot of fun, a lot of vulnerable. She’s been through a few titles and iterations since I tried her out way back when I first thought hmm, a solo show would be kind of cool. She’s evolved over the years - and gotten some notice - but like an overgrown haircut, she needs a little attention.

In the performing arts we practice, we repeat, in other words - we must, otherwise it’s just playing around in our living rooms. (I do a lot of that.) This opportunity to repeat is creative fuel, I feel. Any performer worth their salt will tell you that onstage repetition is anything but formulaic. It’s different every single time because we are different every single day; we are living breathing human beings, not robots. The audience is different, so the room teaches us as it changes, too, and then we can go back and dig in and consider.

That’s what a residency provides - in exchange for the hard labor, you get the opportunity to go deep, to re-work and re-craft and re-create and discover (the best part! there’s always a discovery). Editing is hard; what you had got you this far, so why mess with it? Will it be good if I change it? And the answer is that you don’t know, but you must allow change and try the new and different. Ugh, terrifying! The trick, I’m finding, is to stay very, very present as I return with my changed self to a changed room in front of a changed audience - the only “no” is no judging. Presence requires courage; I have to screw myself to the proverbial sticking place, again and again and again.

It pays off, this present courage. My last show, Unexpected Songs, was definitely a stretch - perhaps it didn’t seem so adventurous to my audience, but for me it was a Big F-*-*-*ing Deal: I told some stories I was nervous to tell, sang music I was nervous to sing - lots of pop music, heavens! Returning to the process, my process, gave me the structure, and the courage, to risk something new. I know what it cost me and I definitely ran into some no’s, but I also know how it changed me, how it changed the room and how I feel about the yesses.

So I get to return to Ingenue You When with changed eyes, ready for no’s and teeming with yes. Returning, it seems, is the actual practice. To risk, fail, risk again is our true and constant work, our ritual. And what else, then, is a residency for?

Mistakes required.

What we do most: rehearse; the second most: mess up; third most: repeat.
Rehearsal is actually my favorite. (Sound is not great, but we were working…)