Remember reading plays out loud in high school Lit class? I used to love those days. I could exalt in what I loved and nobody could make fun of me because we were all being forced to do it! But nothing could have prepared me for the day we read ‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller. I had a very small part that day, which ended up being a good thing. Because as we read I realized, “That’s me… I’m Willy Loman!” I understood his insistence on being “well liked.” Like Willy, I was also desperate to be popular, and I just knew that would solve all my problems. And yet, I saw Willy’s folly. As he destroyed his own life, as well as the lives of those who loved him most, I was also destroyed, covering my face on both sides so no one would see the tears streaming down. I shocked myself by relating so intimately to a middle-aged Jewish New Yorker from 50 years ago. The imagination happened effortlessly and at full force. It was weird and uncomfortable and amazing.

I managed to leave class without being caught, but the damage was done. I knew Theatre was my future. Of course I would soon learn that was only part of the answer, and I had no idea how to untangle the rest. I had done school plays and enjoyed them, but from that day on, I knew plays were my entryway to the world. And so began the longest, strangest, and most constant relationship of my life.

*****

I love

• Marcel, my Italian Greyhound

• 1940s Hollywood gossip

• 1980s miniseries

• chopsticks

• ethical dilemmas

• weird abandoned amusement parks

• flip phones

• making wreaths

• heavy snows

I hate

• roundabouts

• reading menus

• all pies ever

• light snows

• echo chambers

• condescension

• club soda in old fashioneds