It's hard to sleep when you are the manager of your own business venture. It is hard to feel that everything is totally under control. About a two weeks ago, I started to lose it.
The first week of panic involved getting appointments. I began to think there would be no appointments! What if this is crazy, and theaters have policies set up to prevent this and everyone thinks we are raging lunatics?
Then we started to get appointments. Lots of appointments...all of a sudden.
And I thought to myself...Two weeks before we leave? Two weeks! Oh my God, we're not ready! Why haven't we worked on our material more? What are we doing? What have we been doing? What if no one will coach us? What if we have no idea what we're getting ourselves into? Really great people are going to see us and we won't be ready!!!
Those were the thoughts that passed through my head. Time seemed to slip through my fingers like so much sand in so many metaphors. Or similies.
Luckily we had our first coaching session. It turned out that we weren't as crazy as we thought. Our fabulous professor from Brooklyn College, Mary Beth, has been generous enough to coach us and managed to boost our confidence all at the same time. We found that we weren't actually crazy, and we had managed to learn something in grad school (and absorb it to this day), and we are actually capable, hardworking, talented actors.
Acting is all about putting yourself out there, both while you are working and while you are doing "the business". In a lot of ways we have opened ourselves up by working on this project. When you open yourself you create a risk. Risk can lead to pain, but it can also lead to great success. If you don't risk, you are protecting yourself from failure and triumph. You are embracing the ordinary and turning your back on the extraordinary. As one of my favorite poems says, "Only the person who risks is free."
And so I am excited...no, terrified...no, excited...
