Not 'Just' an Actor

For a long time I have been very dissatisfied with the state of my art. As an actor I felt not just limited but purposefully constrained to not being able to do anything unless some big and wonderful director were to pluck me up and insert me into her piece. And if I were so fortunate to ever be chosen I should feel damned lucky because I am just a tiny an dinsignificant cog in their large, complicated, and beautiful machine. Not only a cog but the least skilled and the least valuable piece.

This is a sucky way to feel. Now I don't assume all directors feel like that, but the way most theater and most casting works seems to support and encourage that kind of thinking. And a tiny, unskilled, insignificant cog could never possibly have anything of value to offer to the creation process of work.

But I always felt that I had more. I didn't always know that this was what I felt, and even after I identified the fact that I wanted to create some of my own work, I really had very little clue how to go about it from knowing what or how I wanted to do to figuring out how to start.

The Tim Miller workshop was great for me because not only did it inspire me, it also really showed me how much is inside me and waiting to get out, and it showed me the way that I could do this. I, me, myself could do this with just me.

So, as of now, I am not 'just' and actor. I am a writer/performer. Step back.