Being in the theatre world is such an advantage/disadvantage paradox. On the one hand I have automatic community, automatic camaraderie, automatic sympathy with a large group of New Yorkers when I admit “I’m an aspiring actor.” I’ve been lucky to land a job where this makes perfect sense to all my coworkers. When I’m in the city I almost  interact with people to whom this makes sense. Where it makes sense I’ll work a shitty unfulfilled failing hundreds of times to land the job I really want. I’m a New York cliche and New Yorkers understand that. Outside the city, I’m a freak, a derelict, a slacker, a stupid, naive, damsel in distress. A “what if you could get a better job?”, a “don’t you realise the odds are mad/wicked/hella stacked against you?”-  the perfect “don’t you realise you won’t be a movie star? let me save you from your silly delusion. And as that’s the case why the hell would anyone want to be an actor?”

Because I can’t not be. I can’t explain it better than that.

Thank god I can be in a bubble where that makes sense.

Of course this bubble is relatively small. They say the theatre world is a small one. And it is, as all accounts of my previous post attest.

And yet the island has proved surprisingly small even outside my bubble. Let’s journey from the semi-theatre related (because let’s face it, it’s hard for me to break away) to totally non-theatre related through this series of “It’s a Small Island” posts.

On the same rained out night where I was mistaken for Lauren Ambrose, I was making my way over to a house party in Brooklyn (and if I lived in the apartment where said party took place, my cliche-ness would be complete. The perfect cliche Brooklyn residence complete with view.) The premature ending of the show left me with a couple hours to kill, which was no problem- two hours after leaving the theater I’m down 70+ blocks trying to catch the L. And there standing next to me are two people who had tried to see the show that night. Who had stayed until the final announcement after one hours wait in the rain and one soaking to the skin. I had admired their perserverance and “eh, it’s ust water, I’m too cool for an umbrella anyway attitude.” And they were both around my age and kinda cute and ok, which didn’t hurt my remembering them 70+ blocks and 2 hours later.

So we’re standing on the platform and I do something very out of character. I approach them, I chat them up. It was a victory in my ongoing battle against my insufferable “I make people come to me” nature. They were from Canada. Now residing in Brooklyn. I learned the key differences in American and Canadian dialects (we say “roof” they say “ruff”) and that in Canada every Walmart has a McDonald’s in it (eeeeeew), and the most valuable lesson: if you want to go up and talk to someone, just fucking do it.

in the works: NYPride (Mika you should give me access to pictures so I can post them), I got a new (totally cliche) job, Scottish con men, Central Park Guy update, Bronxville and moving out of it