My acting teacher sent out an email last week asking if anyone wanted free tickets to see the new Broadway play “August: Osage County”. I took her up on it and ended up with a totally free Center Row N orchestra seat on Sunday afternoon. KA CHING!!! Just me and a play, the best way to spend a day, in my opinion. The play is a transfer from Steppenwolf in Chicago and though I had read that glowing review, I had also read that it runs about three hours and twenty minutes. Equipped with water and a Luna Bar, I put on my glasses and settled into my seat, unsure of what to expect.

Around 6:20 pm, when it was over, I realized that I could have sat back down in my seat and watched it AGAIN. I could’ve just pressed rewind over and over and let it keep going. That’s how deep I fell in love with it. It opened officially last night and earned this well-deserved review from the NYTimes.

In it, critic Charles Isherwood likens watching the play to “greedily devouring two, three, four episodes of your favorite series in a row on DVR or DVD. You will leave the Imperial Theater emotionally wrung out and exhausted from laughing, but you may still find yourself hungry for more.”

Charles Isherwood, you complete me.

If anyone belongs to tdf, they are selling tickets for this week and next for $29.50. If you do not belong to tdf and want to go on a platonic date with me, shoot me an email and I’ll get you a ticket and I promise I will not keep turning to you and asking “WHAT DID SHE SAY?” during the performance unlike someone a few rows behind me. Because heck yes, I am going again. If I could, I would go every single day and watch this play and I’m telling you, if I did, I would no longer need therapy. This play…oh Lord…it makes me feel like spinning around in a circle and singing really loud and splashing in the rain and screaming until my voice is gone. It makes musicals look so….unimportant. Which is a topic for another day. But…yeah. Few things get to me like some really serious straight theater. (Straight as in “nonmusical”, not as in “gay”.)

In keeping with this inspiration, I totally kicked ass in acting class last night. I don’t usually say that. I usually come home and tell my roommate that I am the worst actor who ever lived.

But last night, I was given the opportunity to do an exercise on my own, an exercise I created and wrote and performed. Nothing serious, just a few minutes long and it’s too complicated to explain but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that last night was the first time I ever described myself outloud as a writer.

One thing I’d like to change in this coming New Year is to start describing myself as an actor and a writer without the self-deprecating comments that go along with that. I always feel like as soon as I say “I’m an actor” someone’s going to roll their eyes (BECAUSE THEY DO) and so I have to offput that from the get-go by making comments like “I know! Just like EVERYONE IN THIS TOWN! HA HA I’M A PROFESSIONAL WAITER!!! HA HA! HOW FUNNY IT IS TO BE GENERIC AND POOR!” While I was working with the twins and anyone asked me what I did for a living, I immediately said “nanny”.

I AM A NANNY.

Somehow, that seemed like a more socially acceptable job than an actor.

Why is this?

So last night, in class, when everyone started praising my performance but more important to me, my WRITING, I was so moved. My acting teacher asked me to talk about the process of the exercise, how I prepared for it and I wanted to play it down a little bit by saying “Well I’m a visual person, so I need to see it in front of me…” and instead, I caught myself and I said “Well. I’m a WRITER and that’s what I went to first, the writing.”

And then my classmates were so complimentary that my soul started getting full of all the things that are usually absent–confidence, security, pride.

I’m so sick of feeling like I need to justify being an artist.

(Already, I’m making fun of myself in my head. You’re an ARTIST? BWA HA HAAAAA.)

Honestly though? I’d like to take a little more pride in the very very difficult path that I’ve chosen.

I’m so sick of caring what other people might think about me.

If I have to get up every day and wait around with hundreds of girls so I can sing the right words on the right notes or say the right lines with the right intonation and connection to the material, with maybe an accent or two thrown in, all the while looking showered and presentable with makeup and an appropriate dress with appropriate heels, even if it’s only for 90 seconds that I’m in the actual room and if I have to do this, MUST do this in order to get a job, if I have to put things on hold like, moving out of town or going on an extended vacation or going back to college or getting a better-paying job or missing time with my friends and family to focus on this, this CAREER, then damnit I am going to be PROUD OF WHAT I DO.

Hi, I’m Laura.

I’m an actor.

I’m a writer.

Sometimes I post here, on my blog.

And if you ever want to know what moves me to do what I do and the kind of feeling that itches at me from the very bottom of my belly, telling me that I’m not ready to give up yet, you can go see that play I talked about earlier. You can go sit through that masterpiece and laugh your head off and sob your eyes out and then maybe you will have a tiny, tiny sliver of what propels me out of bed every morning. You will not be sorry.