It just wasn’t worth it. After more than 30 years of acting onstage, I was done. No matter how low stakes, no matter how small the role, the pre-performance anxiety and post-performance crash were no longer worth the fleeting (yet extraordinary) high of being onstage.

When I made this decision I was far away from the stages of New York, to which I aspired through 14 years of professional theatre training, and on which I briefly appeared. Community theatre was definitely not where I expected my career to take me, but a good actor respects any (paying) audience and the folks at the Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center in Lexington, Kentucky were no less deserving of a good performance than those at the Lincoln Center in New York.

For a wannabe character actor, this was as good as it got. Two short yet significant scenes, one in each of the play’s two acts. No obligation to maintain the show’s energy or carry the full weight of the production’s success on my shoulders. I had a couple of decent speeches, a few solid laugh lines, and a sharp suit for a costume.

I hadn’t even auditioned! Through word of mouth a director I’d never worked with discovered I was available and offered me the role sight unseen. For my money, auditioning is the worst part of the actor’s career, and to be offered a role without going through that humiliating process is an honor only afforded to the most talented performers.

The rehearsal process was delightful, mostly because I was only called once or twice a week. When called, I spent most of my time alone in a closet memorizing my lines, or, more likely, in the backstage area flirting with the stage crew between scene changes.

So! No audition, a great role in a good play, a calm rehearsal process with a talented cast, and, according to the director, tickets were moving fast. In short, this was an actor’s dream.

The morning of the show I woke up and immediately vomited. A sense of dread heavier than the quilts I sleep under lay on me. Each hour awake felt as though I was adding another quilt. By the time I was called to the theatre, I could barely stand up.

Once I made it to the theatre, as always, I went manic. The adrenaline surge of an imminent performance combined with my undiagnosed mood disorder to create a Sam that seemed like he was on (a lot of) cocaine.

Backstage during the performances I would pace, compulsively snack, drain my water bottle with the deep glugs of the dehydrated. If I felt someone else was too close, or too loud, I would snap and snarl. If while backstage I heard someone onstage drop a line, or fumble a cue, I’d roll my eyes in frustration or turn red with embarrassment.

Despite appearing in dozens and dozens of plays over the course of my life, I have very few memories of being onstage. Like many performers, I enter a sort of fugue state only to emerge on the other side dripping with sweat, the echo of applause ringing in my ears.

After the show the cast and crew went out to celebrate at a nearby bar. I was not directly invited, because I’m a sober alcoholic who likes to make sure everyone knows that about me. So instead I walked back to my house with the paramount need to keep the performance high going for as long as possible. My muscle memory ached for the invisible handle of bourbon on the top of the fridge. In the end, I drank a liter of Diet Coke at 11:30pm just to feel the rush of something I knew I’d regret in the morning. Lights on, music blaring, I danced with the ghosts until the sun came up.

The Ancient Past, The Distant Future

The cast and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation were no doubt contemplating endings as they produced season 7 episode 23, Emergence. The second to last regular episode before the legendary two-part series finale, Emergence is a calm, almost sedate examination of the creative process.

We start with Data performing Prospero’s speech from act five of The Tempest wherein he resolves to break his magical staff, and drown his book of spells. After a brief discussion about the finer points of stage lighting, Picard, a non-acting Frenchman with a deep knowledge and affection for England’s most famous dramatist, explains Shakespeare’s subtext.

“Well, Data, Shakespeare was witnessing the end of the Renaissance and the birth of the modern era, and Prospero finds himself in a world where his powers are no longer needed. So, we see him here about to perform one final creative act before giving up his art forever.”

Data identifies this as a tragic moment, to which Picard quickly responds:

“Yes, but there's a certain expectancy too. A hopefulness about the future. You see, Shakespeare enjoyed mixing opposites. The past and the future. Hope and despair.”

Endings and beginnings.

After an unexplained disturbance in the holodeck (yes, even after seven years in space they never did get the holodeck working right) Geordi and Data discover several mysterious nodes in various Jeffries tubes and access hatches. Data postulates that these nodes are connecting the ships systems in a way which mirrors the structure of the human brain. The Enterprise-D, it seems, has developed a form of intelligence.

What does that intelligence want to do? It wants to grow. To reproduce. To create.

Over the course of the episode, the Enterprise takes system control away from the crew, redirecting resources throughout the ship, combining the technologies of the holodeck, replicator, transporter, and more to create…a really bad balloon animal?

Its masterpiece complete, the Enterprise gives up control of ship systems, and returns to its previous non-intelligent state. As Dr. Crusher informs us, “There are some species whose sole purpose is to reproduce. Once they finally procreate, they die.”

That’s All, Folks!

But with TNG - what was the end? Even as cameras rolled on this episode, production had already begun on the first film to feature Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D. A story which “ended” in 1994 lived on in cineplexes until 2002, only to be revived again in 2020 with the premiere of Picard.

Snap A Stick, Pick Up A Pen

What that in mind I ask myself - is my acting career over? It’s hard to say, but I think yes. Reading a silly poem at the odd open mic is thrill enough for me, and the only way I can see of going pro is if I somehow fall backwards into a career reading audiobooks as a result of my writing. 

In a way, I’ve always been disappointed by acting. The way I was taught, a good actor is an empty vessel, whose art comes in allowing the director, playwright, and even other actors to fill their performance.

For many years, this was a relief - I could follow my artist’s heart without having to say anything myself. But the older I get the more I understand that my primary frustration with acting as a medium was that so often you needed someone else’s permission to do it. Whether we are talking about casting directors, venue managers, or the barista running open mic night, more than anything else a live performer needs someone to offer them a place to perform, a place for an audience to gather.

Alone you can analyze scripts and recite lines, work yourself up into tears, practice punchlines, adjust to your costume…but you can’t wake up in the middle of the night, eyes wide with creative mania and, in the spur of the moment, put on a play.

I do not need anyone’s permission to write. If you took away my social media profiles, word processors, and college-lined notebooks, I would scrawl haiku on the back of Kroger receipts. Acting requires permission, requires other people — to write I only need myself.

My last appearance onstage was two years ago, and I haven’t experienced (or sought) the high of performance since. I broke my staff in front of a sold out audience, and didn’t even realize it. Giving up the freedom theatre afforded me has granted me other freedoms, particularly the freedom to control my story. The Enterprise required this same control only once and what the ship had to say was not terribly coherent. Ridiculous as this may sound, I plan to outdo the Enterprise. Don’t tell Geordi.