Helpful Advice on Dealing with Theatre People
i definitely didn't write it but whoever did deserves a medal. or to be shot. one or the other.
**ADDENDUM** Holly has just informed me that there is, in fact, a known author to this bit of brilliance: pamie. her original version was yoinked and cut down to the less specific version here. so if you're a purist, head on over to pamie and check it out. if not, this one is still funny. and either way, it's her baby.
Dear Non-Actors:
I'm speaking on behalf of the acting community, here. I'm about to tell you something for your own good. It's risky for me to do this, but here goes:
Don't date us.
Seriously. Don't date an actor.
I know we seem all very charming and funny and outgoing when you first look at us, but I'm here to tell you something; we are all dying on the inside. We are the worst people in the world to date. We are all slowly killing ourselves internally. We are.
We are faced with rejection on a near-daily basis. And as much as we tell you that it doesn't bother us, it does. It hurts the very core of our beings.
We try and cover the pain with humor, or we attempt to dull it with alcohol or cigarettes or whatever-drug-of-choice, but the fact of the matter is it kills us that every single day we have to wake up and still be ourselves.
We are always ourselves.
And it's never good enough.
We are used to only seeing people for six weeks at a time. After that, the sound of that same person's voice will make us want to scream.
We hate it when people tell us what to do, but we will constantly ask for advice. We want a director in our lives. Someone who is telling us things we want to hear (praise, attention, affection), but when that person has constructive criticism, we can't stand him or her anymore.
If you ever tell us how to say something, or correct us on how we remember things, you're pretty much out of our lives forever.
We only have the same six stories about how great some summer show was and we will tell them over and over and over again.
We might get into fist fights over the best season of SNL.
We are always talking to ourselves. In the shower, in the car, in our beds at night. Sometimes you'll find us talking to corners, plants, televisions. We sometimes want you to listen to us say the same three minutes of material you've heard about one million times and then ask if you can see the "subtle" changes we have made.
We are constantly having to see other people's shows, even really bad shows, and we have to tell the person that was in the show that it was really good work. We're not being a good friend or anything, it's just that deep down we know that if that other person is up later for the same role we're up for, we know that we're better and will get the part.
It's not pretty, and we know it. We are horrible, terrible, annoying people.
The bitch of it is, every single one of us will tell you that we never want to date an actor. I bet every actor you know is dating an actor. If they weren't actors when they started dating, they became actors (or techies) by having to "help out" with a show when someone drops out. Eventually, everyone in the circle becomes a performer. Every single one of us will tell you that we never want to date an actor; that they are moody and flaky and irresponsible and self-centered.
And then we crawl right back and date another actor.
Because we are slaves to talent. We're slaves to pretty things. We are more turned on by stage presence than a good meal. I'm not kidding. I don't care how well you cook or dress or hike or catch a football. We want to see you do some Tony Kushner. That's all we want. That is so hot.
Realize that I'm going to be in a bit of trouble for spilling our secrets here.
Every single actor feels like the single-worst actor in the world. We all feel like frauds. That if anyone really knew how much we were faking this whole thing, then we'd be shunned forever. We never feel prepared.
We think of ourselves first. We love ourselves more than anyone else in the world, and we hate ourselves just as passionately at the same time.
We will be so happy that we will start crying because we will realize that we may never feel this happy again. We will be so angry that we will create a huge situation out of the lack of ice in the freezer.
We create our own drama. We live and breathe drama. If there's no drama, you're not living.
We hate each other passionately for forcing us to go see other shows and having to listen to their drama when it's OUR drama and OUR shows that are the most important.
We'll skip a friend's show to have sex, and then when they skip your show to go on a date, they are the assholes.
You. Can't. Win.
An actor will kill you slowly.
We never shut up. We never stop talking. When we've stopped talking it's because we're depressed, and we will be blaming ourselves, but we'll probably take it out on you.
Do you want to live with this?
Just let us date each other and keep on hating and loving each other.
Save yourself the pain and the self-esteem issues. Sure, we're great at parties, but when the lights go out, we are miserable, moody, overly sensitive people with such paranoid delusion that we are able to convince ourselves that the entire world hates us.
I may never get to do a show again for this, but I think that it's good to let you know now that we are not what we appear to be.
And besides, we're just going to date each other anyway. We can't help it.
back
