When I first came to Los Angeles in pursuit of TV and film work, I began to notice a faint... dying of my soul, perhaps? So, like any migratory creature, I followed an inexorable pull. Mine took me to the theater.
A few years before my cross-country move, I had met a delightfully eccentric actress while spending the summer performing in a Shakespeare festival. She told me if I ever came to Los Angeles, I had to get involved with her theater company, which to her husband and her was not merely a theater company, it was a religion!
In hindsight, and out of context, that sounds more than a bit red-flaggy, but if you'd met this pair, you'd accept it as their unique brand of enthusiasm. And in truth, many of us displaced theatre kids found in the company, if not a religion, at least a home.
Because the company focused on process as much as performance, there were tons of opportunities to play. Script analysis, table reads, staged readings, festivals of readings, the occasional full production. I moved to a new apartment for a number of reasons, but chief among them was to live less than a mile from the theater. I had found a reason to stay in LA.
In fact, during the first full production I did there, a handsome British guest artist walked into the black box theater, and, I think we can agree he changed my life. He'd been a coaching client of the Artistic Director's, and she convinced him to come do a show. I have her to thank directly for meeting him.
We produced a new musical, and I was cast! The Artistic Director said she loved my singing voice, thought it was wonderful and interesting. My heart was hers at those words. One night, we had a one-on-one, post-rehearsal, sort of extended coaching session with wine in teacups, where she encouraged me to go further, play more, be more in my body. She said we could create a tour de force performance. I was in the midst of a terrifying breakup, and was so grateful to have this outlet, to get to sing, and get to grow.
I was also, around that time, in need of a job. After a restaurant gig was abandoned in favor of a temporary office job, which in turn gave way to some desultory personal assistant work, I was struggling. I wanted to do the next play, but I knew I needed a job, and what brand new job would give me the flexibility needed to accommodate the rehearsal schedule?
Well it turns out, the Artistic Director needed some data-entry type help in the office, and I could do that! So I now had an artistic home, an acting job, and a day-job, all in one.
And that's when it got complicated.
I was incontestably an adult by now, and should by any measure have been capable of maintaining professional and personal boundaries. But I wasn't. I was so far away from certain aspects of maturity that it would take me years to even recognize them, let alone take steps on what I suspect will be a loooooong road to reaching them. I know that is true about me.
What was true for the Artistic Director, I don't know. I can't in any fair way speak for her, nor do I have the right. I will just say that between the two of us, we were unable to communicate effectively and generously. Maybe we were both "accidental administrators" at the root of it, not really cut out for the rigors of fundraising and diplomacy. Certainly, her responsibilities were massive. The pressure to not only keep a tiny theater company afloat during a recession, but to grow it into a top-tier, professional organization business-wise, not just artistically, would have been intense for anyone.
It got bad there in the office. There was another young woman, my friend, also working full-time in another support role, plus several education-focused staff members who stayed only a short time. But for my friend and me, it was rough. We could not please our boss. We could not defend our inadequacies, and we both took it very hard. We walked on eggshells, which sometimes helped, and sometimes made it worse. Once we were accused of thwarting her at every turn.
I remember going on runs in the morning, having imaginary arguments with my boss where I defended myself brilliantly, all the while making my deeper point that everything I did was my attempt at doing the right thing. That I truly cared about that company. That I was only human. But I could no sooner have worked up the courage to say any of that out loud and calmly than I could have flown instead of angry-jogged.
I cried at work sometimes. Other company members saw, and it was embarrassing for everyone. I cried on the way into work, or after work. I started taking a natural supplement "chill pill" to avoid anxiety attacks. One day, I had to share a car with my boss, and I took two "chill pills" and stumbled through the day in a thick fog. I was terrified of her, and furious at myself for being unable to either make things better or get out.
About two years in, as the company and staff grew, a sort of civil war began between those company members who wanted to remove her from the top job, and those who supported her. It got ugly. Murkily, poisonously ugly.
At the helm of the "remove" camp was one of the pillars of the company, who left my friend and me out of it as much as possible for as long as possible. An act of kindness for which I will forever be grateful. But even if we'd had no part in raising the army...everyone knew. Everyone had seen us cowering. There was no doubt what side we'd be on.
There was a company meeting to let people on both sides speak. I cannot imagine how - out of an empty auditorium - I managed to put my stuff down in the row and seat right behind where she would sit, so that when all eyes turned to her face, either in support or in censure, my own face was right behind hers. I was mortified, horrified, but I thought switching seats would be unforgivably provocative. I could hardly breathe.
There was an email to company members written by a passionate defender of hers, telling all her opponents to examine our souls. The Board stepped in to douse flames and provide structure. There was a vote. The "removes" were in the majority.
She called a final staff meeting. In attendance were me and my friend, our two interns at that time, and a Board member. My now departing Artistic Director announced the results of the vote, and then said to my friend and me something like "Well, you got what you wanted." I felt indignant (among other things), because I hadn't been at the helm of this movement, I was just one of the most battered buoys in its wake. Out of my mouth came (to my eternal awkward shame) something like "I hold myself innocent of that accusation." I guess it's amazing I got out any words at all. She then turned to the two interns, both of whom were devoted students of hers, and told them this was a true peek behind the curtain. A much more profound understanding of the dynamics possible in a small membership company than they could ever have expected, and that she hoped it could somehow serve them down the line. They were devastated. And I believe that was true, what she said. A harrowing lesson, indeed.
This woman earned her devoted fans every bit as honestly as she earned her strong detractors. I can never be unbiased, but nor may I fault those who stayed with her. I vowed to say nothing negative about her in public. I slipped up sometimes (badly once, and the look on the face of the friend of hers who overheard me haunts me). But my silence was not truly kind. And my refusal to say the words fooled no one. Still, the silence was better.
Once, years ago, she said "Drop by drop, knowledge comes to the unwilling." That is one my favorite things I've ever heard, and a saying I sardonically apply to myself from time to time. In many ways, she was one of my greatest teachers.
Two summers ago, I woke up to an email from a very dear fellow member of the company, the subject line just the ex-Artistic Director's name. I instantly clicked, sensing... something. This company member was reaching out to make sure I'd heard about our former leader's death. Her shocking and much too early death. Of all the many things I am grateful for, her making sure I heard the news from a compassionate friend before I saw it on social media will remain on my short list. She used the phrase "Weird, sad, unresolved." Well, yes.
The Artistic Director had kept her illness a secret from all but (I presume) a close few. To think that someone who loomed so large, in good ways and in bad, to so many could just suddenly be gone was disorienting, and even more unmooring than life during the first summer of our pandemic already was.
The love between us had been lost years before. But still.... She used to be my mentor. One of only a few people who have ever taken me under their wing artistically, even briefly. And that was a thing I had longed for - a mentor, a guide. I was so proud of being admired by her in return. And even though I was half of our tango... I'd never set out to be her enemy. I was so angry in those days, so indignant, but it's clear to me now that I was also heartbroken.
Calls came in all day from a few people who'd been on my side of No Man's Land. Stunned former trench-mates who couldn't say anything out loud. This woman left behind plenty of truly and mutually beloved friends and colleagues who absolutely, positively did not want to hear from the likes of us. So we stayed low. Talked to each other about our disbelief. Processed or mourned in a complicated, private way. I guess that's what I'm still doing. Mourning, defending, forgiving.
I don't know if our relationship could ever have been repaired. I might have hurt her as much as she hurt me, and it seems like a steep, steep hill to climb from the valley on my side. Would we even have tried? I honestly don't know. Probably not. But the total impossibility of it now... it's an odd, endless limbo.
I do know I have learned to never let a dynamic like that grow between a boss or any colleague and me again. If that has added to some of the callusing of my heart, so be it. I have grown up. A little. Drop by drop, knowledge comes to the unwilling.
