So: I didn't win.

I was in a committee meeting when I got the results. Tabulation Day, and there were a bunch of candidates who are members of the LORT (League of Regional Theatres) committee; and we just happened to be on the room together as the results came in. As the meeting dragged on, one by one each of our phones rang we politely excused ourselves, went out into the anteroom, took the call and heard the news.

I didn't get re-elected to Actors' Equity Council - and in the most excruciating way. I was beaten by a nose. Six slots available in the Eastern Region, twenty two (!!) people running - and I was seventh by a mere 81 votes.

Some context: My service as a Councillor is one of the things I am most proud of in my entire adult life. Over the last decade (2 straight terms) I've changed things for the better for people I love and believe in; fought well, fought hard, fought smart.

So as I was standing there with the phone to my ear, and the news hit my brain, my first reaction was?

RELIEF.

I can hear you saying it -"Wait, What The What? Relief? He was RELIEVED???"

Yeah - label me surprised. Of course, the crushing sadness came later; I was gutted. But first, I breathed a deep sigh and felt my shoulders drop an inch. And I'm still trying to figure this out. Thus, this blog; let's figure it out together, shall we?

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In ten years of service as a Councillor, I've learned that possibly the only key attribute of an effective politician is... ENDURANCE. You need endurance to make it through meetings that go hours over their allotted time; endurance to keep your mouth shut when a colleague is saying something that you know to be PATENTLY AND INCREDIBLY STUPID; endurance to make it through negotiating sessions with Producers that go weeks over the allotted schedule; and endurance to find the time to actually make money, and make up for the time you spent busting your ass pro bono.

And then there's emotional endurance. Councillors attempt to move forward change that Members may or may not agree with, and they do all this because they care for the National body of the Union, as a whole. Perks? Trust me, the Tony tickets are very nice, but they don't even begin to salve the feeling of wanting to stick a fork in your eye during meetings in which someone at the podium is making a point that has already been made five times. Stop me, I'm reaching for utensils just thinking about it.

But it goes deeper than that. Jennifer Swiderski, a Councillor (and now former colleague) who I will paraphrase badly here, recently wrote on FB: "Man - Sometimes giving a damn really hurts."

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you all the way up here in Inwood: "Aw, boo frickin hoo, Jimmy doesn't like it when people say bad things about him or the policies that he stands for. Well, you signed up for it, baby. Pucker up."

I hear you. When you're a leader, you stand out front, and you accept that there's a target on your back. And your front. And your side. And your...well, pick a body part. We know this intimately. And we take those hits. But - I think that in most Unions, the blows usually only come from one direction: Make Us More Money. And hey, that's what Unions are for, right? Better Wages and Working Conditions. Well - not at Equity. Not recently.

Three years ago several beloved Broadway shows went out on tour on lower level contracts, and much of the Membership didn't like it; and I and my fellow Councillors were suddenly in a bare knuckle fight with a group of people who were incensed that they weren't being paid enough. We learned a great deal from that; we got energized, we got ideas...and we got beat up. 

And then, just as the dust from that little party was beginning to settle, we found ourselves in another bare knuckle fight... with a group of Members who want to work at greatly reduced rates, or in some cases, for free. And Council is still getting beat on by this group. Are you understanding that? In consecutive years, a room full of people who are giving everything they can for the Membership, for free, got torched by them... for exactly opposite reasons. Yeah. Basically, our Membership is bipolar.

Lesson? We have a large and diverse Membership, with incredibly divergent needs. Result? The leadership of our Union is regularly beat to shit. 

All that said, I may never go back, and also I would also go back instantly. I would heal these bruises, walk back into a meeting and offer myself up to body blows. Again. Wait a minute. Maybe I'm the one who is crazy here.

And do I still think I'm the best person for the job? Absolutely. Do I think the electorate did the right thing? Once again: ABSOLUTELY. At the end of the day, the full, National Membership decides, because WE are the Union. Do I agree with what the Membership decided here? Well, in this case, obviously not. Damn - Leadership IS Bipolar.

And in that, a gift: I get to ask myself: "Do you believe in a Representative Democracy or not? Will you make use of time away from the Council Room, or is this the Big Goodbye?"

I don't know. What I do know is that even though leadership beats the hell out of you, I love it. I'm good at it. And now I know - one of the most important parts of leadership in  a Democracy? Believing in the system enough to step away when the vote doesn't go in your direction. 

I wish the new Councillors all the best. Get your shields ready, sharpen your wits. You're gonna need 'em. And I'll see you all soon. Because maybe I'm just crazy enough to come back.

Or maybe not.

Revelation in a $43 cup of Starbucks.

I just had a major revelation rise out of a $43 cup of Starbucks. Story:

I'm in Vegas this week, doing an Industrial show (or what we like to call Business Theater) for just a couple of days. We've been staying at the MGM Grand, and our show, for Country Financial, was an interesting little presentation on a huge conference center stage, woven through some long speeches being given by the top brass of this company. The greatest piece of Art? Absolutely not. But it's been a terrific gig. We've been paid well, got housed in a beautiful hotel in a fairly warm climate (while the East Coast was getting pounded by a huge snowstorm), got fed like Kings and Queens, and I even got to the gaming tables - and it looks like I'm actually going to leave Vegas 'up' about 100 bucks. Happy days!

So yesterday morning just before I checked out, I went downstairs for a $43 cup of Starbucks. Well the Starbucks cost $8 - (8 dollars for a cup of Starbucks drip and a scone! YIKES!), so where the other $35 come from? As I was stirring in some milk, I noticed that on the gaming floor not 10 steps away there was a five dollar Blackjack table with a nice, welcoming looking dealer standing behind it.   I sat, and I was the only one at the table – you can do this when it's 7 AM on a Wednesday, even in Vegas.

When you play Blackjack and it's just you and the dealer, it can be really fun. You can really play the game, and if your dealer is personable, you can strike up a conversation that can ramble nearly anywhere. My dealer's name was Audrey. And as she was casually hammering me with a very unfriendly shoe, the questions began: "What do you do for a living?" "I'm an Actor.". Usually, Actor gets some kind of reaction, but she barely blinked. Because this is Vegas, and she gets every kind of everything at her table. For a moment, I mused that in a certain way, she's a priest, and this is her confessional - but then I thought, no that's not right; she's a zookeeper, slinging cards and jokes at whatever kind of animal runs, flies or crawls by. "Could you break this for me please? " "Well I'm not strong enough to break it, but I'll definitely give you change." Bah-DUM-bum. 

She dealt me a 20 and then proceeded to deal herself 21 the hard way, and as my head sagged and she reached for my chips, another casual question: "What's your favorite thing you've ever done?"

Now as a person who makes their living as a Professional Actor I've easily been asked this question a thousand times. I usually have some kind of stock answer for it, and so I began my usual "Well, that's a really hard question, but..."

Revelation. BOOM.

And I realized that in that silly little industrial show, I had just as much fun in the moment, in the doing of it, in the performing of it, as I've ever had in any show I've ever done. Anywhere.

So who cares? Why does this matter? PROCESS. That's why. It is all about the doing of a thing, not where you are doing it. (As long as you're getting paid, of course - I mean I am a professional and all.) I've been on Broadway, on television, in film, I run my own series, and even in a conference venue at 7AM, I was having a fantastic time with fantastic people.

Perhaps getting hammered at Blackjack is a method for making that clear. (This is not a method that I would advise participating in frequently - but it is quite effective.) Thus: Are you enjoying what you're doing at the moment? If not, then you should probably find something else to do. Me, im going to keep finding every opportunity I can...  just to be in the show. Wherever it is. As long as it's paying.

Thank you Audrey. You took my money... but in the end, I owe you. 

On being a Union Member: A story, a challenge.

A few moons ago, I was an overzealous pre-med student at the University of Michigan with very little (read: zero) experience in theatre. I had decided to take an acting class 'because it would be fun' - and was soon asked to join the cast of a professional on-campus production of Oedipus, as the nonspeaking boy who brought Tiresias (the blind prophet), on and off stage. I remember saying to the Director, "Well okay, but only if I don't miss Marching Band". Somehow they still cast me.

The play was my first glimpse of Professional Theatre; and as I focused intensely on keeping Tiresias from bumping into the furniture, I was told offhandedly, "Oh, because this show is Equity, you can join the Membership Candidate program," (Actors' Equity is the Union which represents Actors and Stage Managers, and EMC is a program by which you can accumulate weeks towards becoming a full-fledged Equity Member). So I signed up for EMC, truly without considering it further - mostly because I was told to.

My character got beat up quite a bit.

Flash forward to a small theatre in Seattle some 5+ years later, where I was in my last year of conservatory training at the University of Washington's Professional Actor Training Program. We were doing a play called Mephisto, an adaptation of the political thriller by Klaus Mann, set in Nazi Germany. I had just started considering where my career might take me, and was thinking about a move away from Seattle to either LA or New York.  We were on a break, and the director was standing near me, speaking to the Stage Manager, and in my conversation a few steps away I mentioned that I had joined the Equity EMC program. Her head snapped around and she stared directly at me.

"You're going Equity?" she said.

"Um...yeah, I, I guess," I stammered.

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you have any idea what that means?"

All of a sudden I got very uncomfortable - I had no idea what that meant.

"Well... I guess, that, um, I'll be a professional?" My only thought about had been that perhaps I'd get to audition for the Big Stuff, and maybe I'd meet some really hot girls.

The director took a step toward me, her eyes boring into mine. 

"The very act of joining a Labor Union is a political act," she said. "You don't join a Labor Union because you want benefits. You join because you believe in what a group can do to defend the individual."

"Um...Okay."

Her stare never wavered. "If you do this - if you become a Union Member," she continued, "I challenge you. I challenge you to become politicized. Don't ever take what has been achieved for you for granted."

I never forgot that moment. And once I got to New York, just after I 'went pro', in 1993, I started volunteering. First as a deputy, then on committees at Equity, and finally running for Council, which is the governing body of Actors' Equity. And looking back on that kid who joined EMC then... here's what I know now:

Your Union card is more than just a pass to safe working conditions, better wages, health care, a pension, access to auditions, and on and on. It is a statement; a statement that you carry in your wallet.

It is a statement that you are politicized. That you are a part of the political process that makes things better for Labor in this country. 

And it is a statement that, instead of sitting by - THAT YOU WILL FIGHT.