Actor: A Novel in Three Acts

Peter and I, shoulder to shoulder, were waiting in the shadows of the main stage wings, ready to go on. I felt lucky. Growing up in SF and LA, I was used to being shoved into some cramped office space or somebody’s living room along the lines of a jail cell than a theatre. One small plastic table where the casting director sat, usually bored, as their assistant’s assistant held an iced coffee and various stacks of papers and headshots soon to be shredded after the day was done. Sure, I saw some nice places here and there, but infrequently. The stage at Steppenwolf stage was a welcome change. I didn’t feel worthy, but then again...I was there.

Hushed, quiet, and side by side, Peter and I simmered in the awkwardness of needing to catch up but being unable to. He had been the “it” actor at CalArts. Two years above me, we still crossed paths here and there—mostly at parties, drunk and high, unsure what to talk about other than why we were all there. That was a common problem at conservatory: we spent years studying plays, characters, and subtext; we dived deep into the dramaturgical depths of their time periods and what the playwright was trying to say...but none of us really knew each other. One would assume the opposite to be true. Most, if not all, of our interactions were through the medium of theatre, which created a kind of barrier in the world of worlds we communicated with ourselves.

The first time I met him, I recognized he had this type of pre-fame, "gonna make it wherever he goes" aura that only a few actors in every conservatory have each year. That "it factor," Edie called it. Peter was like Brando in his years at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School: committed, passionate, but still light and playful without the insubordination. He cared, but didn't care. He just was. Things came and went through him as he listened and reacted to the play's given circumstances, as if he were playing tennis. I was jealous of him then, like I was back in conservatory. Extremely jealous. Nothing had changed.

He showed me that vulnerability and openness were the keys to existing in any moment. Peter had this ability to speak and be present for both the other actors onstage and the audience, in control of his whole body. I was too in my head, hearing the lines before saying them, imagining my blocking before moving...on and on. My need to control displaced my responsibility to the moment, and I knew it was holding me back. It still was.

Worse, given my nepotism, Peter started from nothing. He moved from Iowa City to Los Angeles on a scholarship. His dad was a farmer, his mom a schoolteacher—no background in acting, no mother like Edie. He said he started reading plays for free at the library, memorizing and reciting monologues on a tractor, running entire scenes to his animals. He randomly applied because a friend dragged him to the nationwide audition. How do you compete with that? How do you have a better, more natural foundation? You don't...as if the muses plucked him out of the middle of nowhere.

Peter played with the work. Where I held onto a method, and Edie's voice sounded in me like a bullhorn, Peter was free. His cadence was collected and controlled. He never missed a cue, a line, and if he did, no one ever seemed to notice. If anything, he played with his mistakes like a child with their food; always listening, forever reacting, patient as if in meditation. He came from nowhere, yet could do everything. I came from everything, but so far, in my mind, I had achieved nothing since its foundation was made of silver spoons.

I noticed Peter wince as he watched and listened to the actor on stage as they called LINE. So caught up in my own thoughts, I hadn't noticed them. There was always a sacrifice at every audition...some kind of blood offering. If an actor bombed in one's group, it usually allowed the better actors to look even better; a quasi-Darwinian rule that relieved casting when they actually saw a good actor, giving anyone who had actually memorized the lines and had some talent a chance to stand out.

"Sorry," the actor onstage pleaded, the hand nearest to us clearly shaking. "I swear I have it memorized. Was right as rain at home...right as rain!"

Casting and whoever else in the audience said nothing.

There was no greater fall from grace for a performer (other than losing one's spark) than to be halfway through what one had come to present to an audience, only to feel their tired indifference increase the longer the performer dragged on.

Good lord, I thought. Agony...utter agony. Who says right as rain anymore?

Older professionals always told me, That's just part of it. Gotta' put in your thousand hours. They were right, which I didn't like to admit, but the initial sting of it turned out to be a greater metaphor for life, which could really mess someone up—especially if they were young.

If an actor got through humiliating beating after humiliating beating, they were eventually granted, through this figurative public execution, a new, hardened, more thick-skinned performer...one able to shrug off missed lines and poor choices. In a strange way, much later, I came to look forward to those mistakes. They reminded me I was human, alive and in it. One endured those battles for the chance to contribute to the creative gene pool of acting and theatre, only to be forgotten one day, no matter how famous or great. The donation, along with the pain and abjection, was there, between the lines, in the subtle and subconscious inflections of an actor's reading...never outright mimicry. That would keep the new performer from their own chance to participate.

On the edge and out of sight, I realized, watching that shaking, terrified actor, this could be it for me too. What if there was nothing in me outside of Edie? I had only ever been handed my chances. I had never been told to go out and find them. These were the stakes I loved and hated.

Peter whispered something under his breath. Was it a prayer for the actor bombing in front of us? Was he going over his lines? That wasn't like him. A bead of my own sweat flicked from my nose to the floor after I uncomfortably shuddered as the actor tripped over their own two feet. Then, they broke the fourth wall again, complaining about the heat.

“He’ll get no sympathy from them,” Peter mumbled from the side of his mouth.

“None at all,” I agreed.

“Lucky for us,” he replied, playfully elbowing me. “We’re professionals.”

I obliged, briefly playing elbow-footsy with him in the darkness.

"What are you doing out here, man?" I whispered. I looked around for Daryn or any kind of stage manager to make sure they weren't near. "I thought you were still in Los Angeles?"

"Theatre reached out," Peter shrugged. "I wasn't doing much in LA and my agency's paying me a little bit. Figured fuck it, I like theatre and deep dish pizza. Why not?"

I nodded, envious of his untroubled attitude.

"How've you been doing out here?"

"To be honest," I said. "I just got here."

"From what I remember, honesty was never your strong suit."

The comment took me off guard. What did he mean? Was he referencing a specific thing from conservatory?

"I meant that as a compliment," Peter said, noticing my apprehension. "We're actors. We lie for a living. Sometimes we tell the truth."

"Ah," I half-laughed, relieved.

Peter opened his eyes wide and fluttered them as if to wake himself up. I was boring him. I was boring.

"Something my dad said actually. It's corny but it's true to the point theatre still, I don't know...works for people?"

One of the other actors looked at us menacingly as if to tell us to be quiet. Peter ignored them. I did too.

"It was time to leave," I said. "Edie, everything."

"You're brave to leave to start again."

"A man goes on a journey..."

"...Or a stranger comes into town."

We covered our mouths as we shared a laugh. The actor on stage had started again. The audience was appropriately silent, but I could sense from the tension in the air that they would rather have them leave. Good for Peter. Good for me.

"Trust yourself," Peter told me. "Trust what you can do. You deserve to be here."

"Do I look that unsure of myself?"

Peter shrugged. "To me? For sure. But I've seen you act before."

Then he turned to face me and took one of my hands in both of his. That touch, that basic human comfort, suddenly brought me back to the first time I had been on stage with Edie: all that darkness, all that unknown — all that fear. I was a child again. Like a newborn. Like someone too scared to open their eyes for the first time, somehow aware they'd be blinded by the light and never be the same again...yet there was no resisting it: the inevitable of nature would have its due.

"These people..." Peter said. "They don't know you. They have no idea who you are. Right now, you are a product to them. Be what they want: their savior, their candy, their OK from the director to take a lunch break—whatever. This is your time to show them. You're free to do whatever you want."

I nodded, embarrassed to admit to myself that I didn't want him to turn away. Then he did, but not after he squeezed my hand with his to maybe let me know I was there, that he was there; that we many and chosen few, were all there sharing one dream of contribution.

As if Peter's words were castings cue, the actor on stage finished. We heard the director give a monotone, "Great stuff...thank you for your time...we'll be in touch." This line of faux cordiality was soaked in casting's complete and utter disinterest in them. Feigned enthusiasm was an actor's worst nightmare. That and completely forgetting one's lines and being left naked. The poor guy bowed, which was always a weird choice, and then stomped offstage towards us.

"Fuck," he under his breath the moment he entered the wings. "You messed up the lines. You missed your blocking. You farted!"

Peter turned his head from them to hide his laughter.

There was a buzz from my phone.

"Jesus," I muttered. With the silence of the stage, the sound was booming. I jammed my hand in my pocket to click it to stop. "Sorry, sorry, sorry."

The other actors snickered. Peter didn't notice. He was getting called up on stage. He was present, now enveloped in the stage awash with light as I stood there in darkened disarray.

"Hey," I called after him. "Good luck."

He didn't hear me.

I wanted to stay and watch but I saw from that first glance who had been calling: Dean and Tim. Both of their texts read, it's edie. I pushed through the crowd of other actors waiting to go on and started down the way we entered from. Her voice had sounded so distant on the phone, as if she was trying to say goodbye. Usually her tone was all vitriol and humor; love and self deprecation. It wasn't like Edie to sentimentalize like that, especially before an audition.

She knew better. She would have made it about herself. One of her stories. This was something else.

My sudden activity had caught the attention of the stage manager. They were waiting for me by the double-door exit before the lobby. From the tiny red glare of their headset washing over their eyes and cheeks—all pinched—I could see they were mad. There was nothing more shameful than talking a call or a text before going on before an audition. Who did I think I was? they were probably thinking. Who even was I, anyway?

They asked where I was going.

"Family stuff," I explained. "But I'll be right back."

"If you're not here, we'll have to skip your time."

"I know how it works."

Out in the lobby, Daryn glared at me from her little table. There was a new long line of seemingly never-ending actors in front of her. Each one had a look of desperate hope in their eye. I scanned Dean's text again.

it's edie, it read. she's ok right now but you need to call me.

Tim's text, blunt and plain, unlike him, simply read, call dean now.

"We can't have people using cell phones right now." It was the stage manager. They followed me.

"Of course." I slipped the phone back in my pocket. "Sorry, it was urgent."

They looked at me as if to ask whether I was coming back in.

Dean's text repeated, over and over, in my mind while I stood dumbly in the middle of the lobby: it's edie she's ok right now but you need to call me. it's edie. she's ok right now but you need to call me. it's edie. she's ok right now but you need to call me.

"What did he mean by right now?" I asked aloud.

"What?" the stage manager asked from a distance.

"I'm sorry," I repeated. "I'm good."

Like a punished child, I returned to my spot by the wings, just a little further back. The heat from embarrassment spread up my back and across my neck to my cheeks. I could see the other actors gawking at me in the dark.

I struggled to hear Edie's crass, yet warm voice in my ear. It was so faint. What did you do to yourself this time?

There was no answer. My thoughts couldn't reach her. I wanted to call her, shout for her as I had over and over when I was a child left on that empty stage, but I couldn't. Distracted, once again, I hadn't noticed the silence that had fallen over the stage and the audience. That was the sound of a good performance ending: a resonant, room-stopping hush. I heard Peter say thank you and start to walk off.

"Went pretty well," Peter said, shrugging and taking my shoulder. There was a humble smile on his calm face. "They're nice. Just relax. You've done this a million times."

"Thanks," I said, half there, half waiting for Edie to reply.

"You ok?" he asked scanning my face.

"Yeah," I said. "You know, same shit."

"Just pick your mark and be here. They told me to tell you you're next."