Only Make Believe

First off thank you to everyone who took the time to vote at the Channel 9 A List yesterday. Thanks to you all we have broken into the top five with 8% of the vote. This puts us just one point down from the Shakespeare Theatre Company. I think that if we all try a little harder we can knock those guys down to fifth and take over fourth place. Here is my goal, it looks like Classika/Synetic has the same idea we do, lobbying hard people, and they are just behind Signature. If we could beat Shakespeare and Arena in this popularity contest I would be pleased as punch, so keep sending your friends to the site and have them use every email address in their arsenal to win one for the plucky little theatre with a heart of gold.

There comes a point in a young man or woman's life where they stop playing. They put away their toys, comic books, fairy wands and crayolas and start acting like adults. And as the toys go away so do games like make believe.

When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s all the neighborhood would participate in cross neighborhood games of Superfriends, Star Wars or GI Joe, much in the same way that my neice and nephews apparently now pretend to be Yu-gi-oh! or Dragon Ball Z. Eventually they will stop playing these games of make believe and settle down and be grown-ups. Actors on the other hand never really stop playing make believe and that is what makes us the objects of so much curiosity in the real world.

As an actor I can't tell you how many conversations I have had where I tell someone what I do and they say, "Oh I did a little acting in high school." These people see acting and pretending as something you give up when you grow up.

Here is what I believe, actors keep pretending so those without the desire or the talent can go on and do the big grown-up important stuff in the world. Do things like runs stores, fix things or start wars. Actors allow everyone else to grow up so that they can go to the theatre, watch a movie or tv and experience someone doing something they loved to do when they were younger, pretend.

For me the real world creeps in all the time, issues like rent and health insurance have made in necessary for me to grow-up just a little. To balance that I purchase toys, comic books, watch cartoons and every chance I get I go up on stage and play pretend, so that someone else can run a multi-national corporation or look for a cure for cancer. Actors and artists make it possible for those who have grown up to keep a little bit of that child they were alive.

You can thank us later.