I spent part of my Sunday watching a marathon of old "Behind the Music" episodes, that old show from VH1 that I absolutely LOVED as a kid. It was a one hour documentary series that talked about the stories behind the careers and hit songs of the biggest pop stars in history. I used to watch it when I lived in New York. It was the best. And the ones I watched today were from a revamp they did in 2010 with P!nk and Christina Aquilera. I geeked out all over again.
As I was geeking out, I thought about my own successes and failures over my lifetime and still-growing career. I love P!nk because she doesn't give a shit and she just does her own thing. She also writes some of the most searing pop songs I've ever heard. I love her music. And it made me think of this recent creative growth spurt I had - and hopefully one I'm still going through. I have been writing plays since college. They all were bad for a long time - even the ones that got me into grad school and the ones I wrote in grad school. I was all passion and no technique - reminds me of the kind of dancer I was in college - for a very long time.
Someone said to me in grad school that it felt like I was holding back. I could hear those words but I didn't know how to break out of whatever shell or whatever fear I was holding onto. I went for years like that. I tortured myself probably for another 8 years after that, trying to figure out who I was. It didn't help that I dated guys instead of doing that exploration. It didn't help that I gave up myself to an industry that didn't know who I was so it kept trying to make me the thing that sells. But I didn't have a debut album that sold 2 million copies (P!nk) or 17 million copies (Christina). I didn't have a grand introduction into the industry. I didn't have a stunning debut that I needed to prove people wrong about. My whole career has been leading up to my "M!sunderstood" album or my version of "Stripped." My life has taken its turns on a much smaller scale. But the same thing is at stake - making who I am known and laying that bare.
It wasn't until I started writing in a way that felt true to myself that things started to change. That really started with my last play, "Death and Cockroaches." If the play before that, "This is Only a Test" was my Off the Wall, Madonna or Justified, then D&C was my Thriller, Like a Virgin or FutureSexLoveSounds. The plays before that were like Janet Jackson's career before Control. They were my Janet Jackson or Beat Street. Yes, I know a lot about random pop culture.
My first musings in undergrad were ideas for plays about lounge singers and amnesia, a young adult going after his child molester, and then I wrote something that broke all convention. I decided that I wanted to do a student recital, but the theatre department wouldn't let me because I wasn't officially a major. I was only a minor. Oddly, this wouldn't be the last time I would be penalized for being a minority. And it wouldn't be the last time that I made the most of it.
The result of that effort was a collection of poems set to dance and music called "Breakthrough." I got all of my friends together - the island of misfit toys - and made something beautiful. I choreographed it myself, directed it and put it up. It was my Yentl. I wrote, directed, choreographed, produced and starred in it. It was the first time something I had created had such universal praise. My best friend from LA was there just three weeks after a tragic family loss. I felt like I had arrived as an artist.
And then I left college and completely switched gears and started doing other things. I moved to Portland and I worked for a crazy ad agency, one of the best in the world. I lived life and dated and had affairs and eventually made my way to New York where eventually I realized I wanted to write plays as a career. I was going to be a playwright. I wrote a play that immediately got me into NYU with a full scholarship and I thought I had made it. Then I wrote nothing but bad plays and bad screenplays and decent TV spec pilots. I was confused as a writer the entire time throughout graduate school, but still left thinking that my career was going to take off because I had graduated from Tisch.
Nothing happened that entire year after grad school, so I moved back to LA to pursue a TV writing career. I had written another spec script during that year and I had two comedy specs ready to go. I languished for a few months and then got a job and a manager after being in town for less than six months. Then I pursued all of my dreams while working a day job for seven years for a high level literary manager. And while I got close on a few staffing jobs and a Nickelodeon fellowship, nothing ever really materialized. I fell in love with an addict and spent my time living this grand Hollywood life, the life I had dreamed of. Now that I think about it, all of my Hollywood dreams came true. I went to parties and I travelled the world. I met famous people and flew on private jets. I really did have a stunning life. I lived in West Hollywood, wore beautiful expensive clothes and at the best meals of my life. But I was living someone else's life and forgot who I was. I went to bed at night feeling alone and like a stranger to myself.
So I left and started a new job and my life got marginally better as I sat in an office by myself reading scripts and being appreciated for the first time in a long time. Then my Dad got sick and my life changed forever and I wrote at home while he was sleeping just go keep my sanity. I had forgotten why I had started writing in the first place because I was so busy trying to be validated. I wanted to be rich and famous. But I got to live that life and I realized that it was empty. I got exactly what I thought I wanted, but I got it without earning it, without working for it and without getting acknowledged for the gifts I had inside. I thought I had blown my chance. Before my life had the chance to begin, I thought it was over. I was a petty, jealous, envious, shell of a human being and I thought that's the way I was supposed to be. I was totally competitive and rarely happy for anyone else's success because I thought their success was supposed to be my success. I was angry and bitter and I took it out on myself by drinking too much and being promiscuous when I should have been more faithful. Sure, I was always loyal, but rarely faithful.
Then my Dad died. And I didn't even know if I should be writing. It felt so empty. Actually, the thing that felt empty was the pursuit of validation. The writing continued to be bright and wonderful. And the deeper I got, the deeper my writing got. My father's death broke me open and now I just had to stand in my grief and let it wash over me. I vowed that first year to not run away from it. So I wrote. I lived. I didn't try to get another job to distract myself. I lived on unemployment until the last possible moment I could. Then I continued to be unemployed. I managed somehow. And I took some temp jobs and made some money from my former employer. I got into another relationship and took care of another person so he could pursue his dream. I made the same mistakes all over again, but didn't think so because this guy was kinder. But he still wasn't as supportive as I needed a man to be. But I didn't know that men could be supportive of me, so I wasn't looking for that. I didn't put that on my list.
During this time, I wrote two plays that I liked. They were good. They were funny. They were well constructed and they were somewhat personal. I wanted to make sense of my open relationship, so I wrote about that. And I wanted to make sense of someone's loss of faith, so I wrote about that. Also, after my Dad died I started writing about death. And everything I have written since has had a death in it or it spoke about death. But nothing happened with those plays. And then I got frustrated. And then I got irreverent.
So I sent in a proposal for a play that I wanted to write. I had seen a report on MSNBC about active shooter drills and it made me angry. It also inspired me because the idea felt so theatrical - these shooting reenactments. I knew it would involve a large cast - at the time, I thought eight. I knew it wouldn't be producible. I didn't care. I wrote a proposal that expressed my frustration and said that I didn't know what the fuck I was going to write because I haven't written it yet. But these are the stories I wanted to express. I wrote about the story I knew I didn't want to write. I was very clear about that. But maybe because I didn't give a fuck, I got accepted into this program to develop my play for eight months. And I poured myself into it. For the first time in a long time, I only focused on myself. I was working hard and putting in the hours. I was meditating, watching my diet, working out, and only working on this project for eight months. And while I was doing that my relationship fell apart because it was only sustained by my efforts to keep it going when it shouldn't have kept going. Once I didn't have the energy to give, we drifted apart and then we broke up. But the play I wrote was a triumph that didn't do what everyone said it would do. It got no awards or attention or a production. It didn't make me the playwright the world would know.
But it did a lot. It taught me to fight for my vision. It taught me to not be afraid to be unpopular. It taught me who to fight with and who not to fight with. It taught me that I could not get into trouble for fighting. It taught me to be the leader and custodian of my own play. It taught me to love actors and to encourage them. It taught me to love and encourage my director. And it taught me to fuck everyone else. Seriously, fuck them. They don't matter. They don't know my vision. They can go fuck themselves. And my play was the better for it. We had an incredible reading and I was proud of the work. But it did nothing for my theatre career.
After the break up, I got the opportunity to submit to a show my friend was running. After some initial encouragement, she had bad news: the execs didn't want to hire someone who had never worked in TV before for a web series. But she could get my work to them, other than that I was on my own. And I submitted this play which was the perfect sample. I got the job - one month after my break up. And then I wrote three episodes and got to be on set and got into the Writers Guild. I finally got the thing I had always wanted - and I was still struggling and trying to make ends meet - but this felt amazing. I knew I could do it again and I did again the following year when I got promoted to Co-Producer and wrote two more episodes.
But then I was also too busy to bask in any of that glory because I had just written something truly special. I went back four years to when my Dad was sick and I moved home to take care of him. I had finally been able to write about that time in my life with the utmost truth and honesty and in the crass, inappropriate, irreverent voice I had been developing all of my life. I started the play in October the previous year when everyone was telling me how brilliant the other play was and how it was going to do all of these brilliant things for my theatre career. I didn't want to listen or be swayed or be disappointed when that didn't happen. So I kept writing. And then I wrote something even more personal and moving. And when I finished it, while I was working on the show, the theatre company I had been working with in their writers group called me to talk about something. Then we had lunch and they offered me a workshop for the play. And I said yes. And then they said they wanted me to join the company and I couldn't believe it. I had the theatre community I had always wanted. I had a place where I could develop my own work and I could get something produced because I was going to produce it. It would set my voice free in ways that I couldn't even imagine. I'm going to write plays with the freedom that I can have a workshop whenever I want it. And I can have people read new pages. I wouldn't have to depend on anyone to make my career happen.
I also discovered a new dream on set. I realized that I want to direct - or at least try my hand at it. So I directed a play workshop this year and the company liked it. And I'm hoping to direct it next year. Along with getting ready for my production next year. I might be directing a play for the company and having a play produced. While keeping my career moving along. I wrote a TV spec pilot that I love. I'm teaching three classes this semester at SDSU where I've been teaching for four semesters. I'm finally qualified to apply for any full time teaching jobs, if I so choose to do so. But most importantly, my dreams have gotten bigger.
I have a new goal to direct a TV show when I get my own show on the air. In order to do that I have to start directing plays and short films - so I have new things to look forward to. I have always wanted to start choreographing dance again and maybe one day I'll get the chance. But I was never a great dancer. And I am a great writer - I have that natural gift. So directing seems like the obvious choice for me to explore and to use the skills of visual storytelling I used as a choreographer back in college. things re coming full circle.
Yes, I still want to get that next TV job. That is a goal. But in order to get there I have to continue to write interesting TV spec pilots. And while I was trying to figure out what I was going to write next based on an idea I have, I started writing out a treatment for another brand new idea. And that's going to be big and bold and fun to write. It's about a golden age in Hollywood. And it's about our social morays in another time. I also now understand that I have this other idea that has taken longer to figure out what it is. And some ideas are just like that. Some ideas don't pop out shiny because some ideas aren't shiny, but they still should get written. And it doesn't matter if none of these are produced or none of these get me jobs because these are the stories I have to write. These are the stories that are coming out of me As much as my Dad's death broke me open, writing "Death and Cockroaches" broke me open as a writer. I say it all of the time and it is so true.
More than anything, I'm excited about what's to come. I'm excited to get to know this new writer who I have become as a result of that play. That play will have reverberations in my career from this moment forward. I am a changed spirit because of that play. And the greater news is that I get to see that play produced next year. This year, I'm working on new pages. Next year, I hope to work more in TV as I have a produced play and direct another produced play. I honestly don't know when I'll be writing my next play, which I already have planned out. It's something smaller, three characters. But I know that it's my next play. However, right now I have these two TV ideas to get out and I have another idea right behind that one, which I would like to develop with someone. I'd like to start pitching ideas in addition to writing them. I love writing new spec pilots. I don't want to stop that to pitch. I want to do both. But I would love to get paid to write a pilot.
Like I said, the dream gets bigger. Now I know what it takes to do the things I want to do. I feel so much more fully formed in order to do the things I want to do. I have more control over my career than I ever have. And I'm looking for a creative partner, in a new agent, to help me get there and to share my vision. I also am looking to share my life with someone ambitious and fun. And maybe the cosmic joke is that it IS another writer. Who the fuck knows?
But I just want to continue to be open and available to the surprise of life, which is exactly the thing I've been aspiring to for a long time - to let the Universe dream a bigger dream than I can for myself. It's all pretty incredible. And now I just need to be ready for the next surprise.
My intention is to be surprised.
My intention is to be open.
My intention is to be clear.
My intention is to love what I do.
I am grateful for the wonderful opportunities over the past 18 months.
I am grateful for every bit of this journey.
I am grateful for the love in my life.
I am grateful that the future looks so bright and so hopeful.
No comments:
Post a Comment