It Doesn’t Get Better Than This

“The opening night of Waiting For Lefty was one of the historical nights in the American theater. What happened was you were seeing theater at its most primitive. You were seeing it at its grandest, and most meaningful. After each scene the audience stopped the show, they got up, they began to cheer and weep. For the first time theatre was a cultural force, as perhaps it has not been since. There have been many great opening nights in the American theater, but not where the stage and the theater were a cultural unit functioning—back and forth so the identity was complete. There was such an at-oneness with the audience and actors that the actors didn’t know whether they were acting and the audience didn’t know whether they were sitting and watching, or had changed positions.” -Clifford Odets

I love hearing people’s stories about what made them decide to pursue a life in the theatre. Often it’s a memory of a high school production that lit them on fire. Gary Sinise, actor and founder of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, talks about being in a high school production of West Side Story. His character spoke two words in total. Didn’t matter. It was the communal experience, the sheer joy, the aliveness, that did it for him. This is an excerpt from his memoir, “Grateful American: A Journey From Self To Service“…

We presented four shows only—and we hit every line on Thursday and Friday nights, nailed it completely on Saturday, and on Sunday night blew the house wide open. And then it was all over. The show. My new community. Me. 

The lights came down. The audience burst into applause. As one of the Sharks, I was part of the gang that carried Tony’s dead body offstage. We Sharks set down the body behind the curtain, and Tony came to life again as just good old Jeff Perry, a high school kid who was quickly becoming one of my best friends. Jeff gave me a huge hug, and I burst into tears, and in glorious pandemonium offstage everybody was hugging and slapping each other on the back, with no chance to blow away the snot because it was time for the curtain call. 

Out in the auditorium, the audience continued their applause, cheering, shouting, whistling their congratulations, and all the supporting players and chorus members came out onstage in a pack. Including me. As a member of the chorus, I stood far in the back of all the people on stage, and we all took our bows while the audience continued to pound their applause. And then the leads each came out one by one and bowed. They stood at the front of the pack. Tony. Maria. Bernardo. Riff. Chino. Anita. The decibel level in the auditorium notched higher with each lead. Everybody stood to their feet. A standing ovation. The leads all took their bows together. I still hung far in the back. Sobbing harder than ever. My eyes scrunched tight against the tears. Then, in the midst of all the commotion, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Opened my eyes. 

The hand was Jeff Melvoin’s. Jeff the senior. Bernardo the Shark. He reached back, grabbed me. Pulled me up toward the front of the pack where the six leads stood. He shouted in my ear to take a bow with all the leads. So I did. Me, this sophomore screwup. Still bawling my eyes out. I stood at the front of the pack, and the audience was still standing, still applauding. Cheering for all of us. I took one long, glorious look around, trying to wipe my nose with my sleeve, and we all bowed again, all together, and I suddenly realized I’d fallen in love with this new community of students. With this new life of theater. It was almost too much to take in. 

Later that night, back in the quiet of my room, I flopped on my bed and wondered if maybe Jeff Melvoin had seen far off into the future, to the person I had the potential to become. Because he’d grabbed me on impulse, I was pretty sure, and I doubted if the audience ever knew the fuller story of why he’d pulled this crying sophomore up to the front of the pack. In the last couple of schools where I’d been enrolled—including this one—if I was known by anyone, I was known as a kid who smoked a lot of pot and struggled to find his way in school. But in the past five weeks this play had morphed into a tent revival of sorts. Theater had pointed me toward redemption. The performers in the play had drawn me toward the river, plunged me under, pulled me up, and pushed me forward. Dripping and new. I’d been handed a fresh start, and I felt hopeful. 

Grateful. 

I realized theater had become my second chance at life, and this second chance caused me to understand I had a lot to be thankful for. A wide-open future. Boundless opportunity. My newfound buoyancy made me want to do something far more with my life than I’d been doing.

It doesn’t get any better than this folks.

This is why we do it.

Go make your art.