The PAL Project: Period (2019)
I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like had I not been burdened with a speech disfluency. Profession-wise, I most likely would be living on a fat government pension and whiling away my time fishing and pursuing a hobby like photography, sculpture or short story writing. And maybe just enough grandkids to keep my cardio at a good level. But what “if’s” are for another life time. What “is” is elderly father, New York City, a natural voice and still many possibilities.
My long time Manager of 30 years, Libby Bush, passed away just last week on Tuesday, May 7, 2019. She, I and her now deceased partner, Ted Lehrman, had a wonderful and productive time together. I never mentioned to them my reason for moving to New York until years later after Ted had passed on. Libby didn’t seem surprised or put back by my revelation and only encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing because she was more than happy with our association. Indeed, 90% of the work posted on my Mapping The Legacy grid came through their agency, Landslide Management. But now I’m at a crossroads again, like in 2008 with Japanoir. Do I seek out new representation or change course and do something different with my life. As I mentioned in my Curated Life Review, my Mom will be 95 in August and she is still “tripping the lights fantastic” so that portends some decades ahead for me. Symbolically, the PAL Project is like a period at the end of a story. Is it time to start a new narrative? I would like to learn how to play the guitar and take singing lessons. Or write another play with the hope of having this one produced so I can join another union. Or visit places for extended periods of time and keep journals. The possibilities are endless so I will have to sit down, evaluate, decide and go. But first I have to take care of some final thoughts.
My journey in search of a natural voice involved many sacrifices both on my part and the part of others who had a personal connection with me and others who had a professional connection with me and thought they were getting a whole complete actor. This latter group, primarily Directors, unbeknownst to them were part of an experiment to see if I could overcome my disfluency through a course of treatment that I had designed and implemented. For some of them, unfortunately, I experienced failures in their expectations of me and an unspoken promise to give a complete and lucid performance. Because I needed opportunities to fail I had to selfishly put my needs before theirs. But I grew from these failures and for that I wish to formally apologize to them. They are:
Vera Di Martini
Tisa Chang
Mia Katigbak
Richard Hamburger
Michael Feingold
Jonathan Silverstein
Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
Lear de Bessonet
Susan Soon He Stanton
Amy Heckerling
There are still more materials I want to add to my Performing Arts Legacy grid, especially some blogs about Uta Hagen, internment camps and a harrowing experience at the Everyman Theater while doing the play Aubergine. They will come in due time. Thank you for reading.
