Somebody, yes, somebody is gonna rain on your parade.

Tyler Barton @tylerbarton27 asks:

I should like to know how you persevere when things do not go as you should like or as you might have planned them. Do you read a book to remove the circumstance from your mind? Do you blog about it to rally support and give yourself encouragement? How do you continue with being a performer if you feel that people do not take you seriously as one or turn their noses at the idea. You may not have such a dilemma facing you, but could you imagine how you might proceed for the sake of argument? I make no guarantee, but I may or may not be in a similar situation at present and seeking inspiration for what to say to best silence any naysayers.


In Kindergarten, our 800-year-old teacher, Ms. Mooney had us make bookmarks for our mothers for Mother's Day.  My mother was a published author.  She was not exactly hurting for bookmarks.  But that was the stupid assignment, so I sat down with my classmates and listened while Ms. Mooney explained each step before we began.  Apparently Ms. Mooney, though most likely trained in some fashion to teach children, didn't understand that giving a bunch of 6-year-olds 20 instructions and then saying "Go!" was like asking a dog to go do your laundry.  If you're lucky you have one of those dogs who can push a cart while walking on its hind legs, but when it comes to putting the quarters in the little slot, they're all thumbs (GET IT????).  It's possible we all remembered step one by the time she was done explaining the entire process, but likely the next step we remembered was, "Give it to your mother on Sunday!"

I got to step one million (it was a really intricate bookmark) in which there was a triangle on the paper that I had to either color in or not color in.  I couldn't remember.  I thought back to Ms. Mooney's demonstration.  I was pretty sure she said, "Don't color in the triangle."  However, she had one of those infuriating teaching techniques in which she demonstrated the opposite of what she wanted you to do.  "Don't color in the triangle like I'm doing right now.  See how I'm coloring in the triangle?  Don't do that.  Got it?  Don't do the thing I'm doing right now.  And Fido, remember to separate the colors and the whites."  I stared down at the triangle for a while and then decided she had definitely told us to color it in.  So, I grabbed a crayon and very carefully colored in the triangle, taking extra time to make sure I didn't go outside the lines.

You know in cartoons when someone gets mad and their face turns red and steam shoots out of their ears?  Sometimes their head morphs into the shape of a tea kettle.  That's pretty much what happened to Ms. Mooney when she saw what I was doing.  I can't be certain her head morphed into a tea kettle, she had a pretty big, square head to begin with.  But she turned red and steam escaped and she SCREAMED at me.  You'd think someone had murdered her cat.  She pointed to my classmate, Robyn and hollered, "Robyn did it right!  Why can't you????"  I wanted to say, "Because Robyn's the kind of girl who brings pompoms to show and tell and does a cheer about how much we love our teacher.  I bring deer turds in a ziplock bag.  I think that kind of explains it."  But I just let her scream.  I thought the 6-year-old equivalent to "This fucking lady is bat shit crazy." 

In the end I gave my mom the stupid bookmark and she hugged me and told me how beautiful it was, though I'm sure she was really thinking, "Great.  Just what I need.  Another fucking bookmark."

When I was about 7 or 8 I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and wept because I wanted to have afro puffs. 

Last October I learned I was 10 and a half weeks pregnant.  The father was a guy I'd broken up with but still lived with.

So, you see, Tyler, life is filled with moments you don't plan for or want.  But what can you do?  Sometimes you just have to let an old lady scream at you.  Sometimes you have to go ahead and have a baby you didn't mean to have and let your life be completely changed forever.

I learned a long time ago that I have no control over anything but myself.  And even then, I'd never have afro puffs.

In terms of continuing to be a performer in the face of naysayers, there has never been a naysayer louder than myself, so whenever someone has doubted me, unfortunately I've filed it in the "Proof that I am a total fraud" file in my mind.  That said, I keep doing it, so clearly that file is way in the back behind "Keep going in this ridiculous profession!" and "The next audition is THE audition."  Even after quitting performing "for good" I came back.  I don't know if that's called "passion" or "stupidity".  It helps (or hinders, depending on how you look at it) that I won the top award in my field.  I can always point to that and go, "There's proof that I'm good at this."  Though don't think for a minute that I don't also look at it as an anomaly ("Sure, you were good.  But, you know, you were also 11 and we were all just kind of impressed that you could walk and chew gum at the same time."). 

There will always be people who think they're being helpful by suggesting that you chose a more pragmatic profession.  Technically they're right.  You should chose a more pragmatic profession.  If there is something else you can or think you might want to do, for God's sake, do it.  I am not one of those people who will tell you to pursue your dream no matter what.  Performing should be a last resort.  You should carefully look at all the other things you might be able to do and if you really, truly decide you would rather die than do those things, then be a performer. 

Consider who the naysayer is before you absorb their advice.  It doesn't matter if your mom or your uncle or your dry cleaner doesn't think you can do it.  They don't know what the hell they're talking about.  Unless, of course, your dry cleaner is Luciano Pavarotti, in which case, he does know what he's talking about and you should take heed.  If, on the other hand, the people you are paying to train you consistently tell you you should think about a different career, you should think about a different career.  Of course I have never heard of a teacher actually saying, "You're wasting your money", because it's their livelihood on the line, but they should.  It's true that art is subjective to a degree.  Even the "best" performers have people who think they're awful.  But there's a difference between not liking someone's work and thinking that person is talentless.  And talent is not teachable.  You either have it or you don't.  Craft and technique are what you learn when you already have the base talent for the art.  If your theater teacher keeps suggesting you run the spotlight instead of playing Macbeth, perhaps you should consider a career in theater lighting design. 

Pursuing a career in the arts, like moving to New York City, is best left to the very young and the very wealthy.  The rest of us are just fools.

I hope that answers your questions.   Sorry I'm not more Suzy Sunshine about the whole thing.  But you've been following me long enough to know what to expect. 


And, for the record, I did eventually get my afro puffs:

No explanation necessary.

Don't Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs. Worthington

Joy Dewing (@jdcasting) asks:

If Krumholz expresses a desire to be in showbiz, how will you react and how do you predict you will handle it?

Very easy.  The second the kid expresses any interest in show business I will ground it until it's 18.

Here's the deal, it's not that I think children are necessarily ruined by becoming professional actors.  I just think that children should be children and not have professional careers of any kind until they can have a better understanding of what they might be getting into.  You can't tell a 9-year-old that while acting is lots of fun now, at some point it will become their means of survival and be a whole let less fun and whole lot more work (if they decide to continue with it, that is.).  It's like telling a 5-year-old they can't be a unicorn.  Good luck getting them to understand logic.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about theater training programs for kids.  It's one thing to sign your kid up for ballet or tap or jazz classes, it's another thing all together to to have your kid taking audition preparation classes.  There are a lot of classes that are marketed around getting your kid on Broadway and I just think that's the wrong approach.  If a kid does express an interest in acting, why not bring them to the next round of auditions at the local community theater?  Why do they suddenly need to become Baby June?  I wonder how many child actors actually said "I want to be an actor" before their parents decided for them that that's what they would do.  I think the majority of child actors were pushed into the business very young by over zealous parents and don't know life any other way. 

That said, I have friends who teach those "how to get on Broadway" classes, and I don't mean to disparage their chosen profession.  If there are suckers who want to pay you to teach their kid "the art of auditioning", teach away.  It's their money to waste.  Though I wonder if it might not be kind of the teachers to gently pull some parents aside and say, "You're kid is never going to be good at this.  You might want to save your money."  But of course that doesn't happen. 

I can only speak from my experience.  I was lucky in that I had no training at all and just thought trying acting might be fun and I got the first bunch of things I auditioned for.  That may sound boastful, or whatever, but it's actually the way it happened, so don't go hyperventilating.  I was in the right place at the right time and I had a lot of luck.  Many of the kids I worked with who were specifically trained to be actors/singers/dancers had parents who were insufferable shitheads.  I saw parents get into physical fights over auditions their children had or didn't have.  I was the victim of one stage parent who couldn't handle the fact that I got The Secret Garden over her kid that she ended up TELLING PEOPLE I WAS A HEROIN ADDICT.  She actually cost me work and hurt my reputation.  ANYONE who worked with her kids will tell you she was a hideous monster.  Literally, you say her name and people cringe.  I am willing to bet a lot of money that you will not find a single person I worked with who has anything other than lovely memories of my parents (except possibly the house manager at The Broadway Theater who got REAMED by my mother when she locked me in my dressing room and forbade me from taking curtain call or going to dinner because she decided my dressing room was too messy.).  That's because while my parents were supportive of my choice to be an actor, they were not typical stage parents.  They were just as surprised as I was when I gained success so quickly and they were mindful that school should come first.  If, when I was in Les Miz, my grades had suddenly plummeted, I doubt I would have even had the chance to audition for The Secret Garden.  My parents' priorities were in the right place.  And they were able to carry on conversations with adults I was working with about other things than my career.  No one cares that your kid just had a callback for a Frosted Flakes commercial.  Open a newspaper.

Maybe that's what I have the real problem with; the stage parents.  Spending thousands of dollars on lessons and headshots and everything else they think it takes to "make it" in show business, when the likelihood of ever actually "making it" is miniscule, is asinine.  You want your kid to take karate after school?  Or learn how to play the piano or speak French or play chess?  Fine.  You want your kid to be a Broadway "star", go take a deep breath and reassess your priorities.  

There are those kids who have a bit of a career when they're young and somehow manage to escape show business as they get older.  If someone could guarantee me that this would be they way it would go for my kid, I'd be okay with him or her trying out acting professionally.  But the stresses of show business are not stresses I would wish on anyone.  Little kids can't make informed decisions about their futures, so why would we think they should begin a career in any field, let alone one that sucks out your soul and leaves icy, cold air in its place?  Please understand, I love acting.  But I wouldn't wish a life in show business on my worst enemy.

That said, college tuition is likely to cost over $300,000 by the time my kid is 18, so you can bet your ass I'm going to try to get my kid in as many commercials as I possibly can until it's about 5-years-old.

If that doesn't work I am going to start gently suggesting a career in plumbing or exotic dancing as early as I can.

Mandy

In the fall of 1990 Inigo Montoya took me to Disneyland.  Technically Mandy Patinkin took me to Disneyland, but besides having just worked with him in the workshop of The Secret Garden, I really only knew him as Inigo Montoya.  For some reason we were both in Los Angeles.  I have no idea why I was in L.A.  He was probably here because he was Mandy Patinkin.  Anyway, he took me to Disneyland before we started rehearsals for the Broadway production.  He said it was so we could bond.  It didn’t matter why we were going.  It was a free trip to Disneyland with Inigo Montoya.

School was in session, so the park was pretty empty.  We didn’t have to wait in line to get on Pirates of the Caribbean or Space Mountain.  He bought me a giant lollipop that was easily twice the size of my head, and all the funnel cake and soda I could shove in my face.  It was pretty awesome.  Until…

We came upon a family somewhere in Adventure Land.  A mother, a father, a couple of kids and an old woman, probably about 113-years-old, who was hunched over so severely from being ancient that her face was parallel to the ground.  Clearly she was suffering from Osteoporosis at the very least.  There’s a strong possibility she was also a hunchback, though past a certain age, who can tell?  She did have some kind of protuberance on her right shoulder, so let’s just go ahead and call her hunchback.

Imagine, if you will, that you’re 11-years-old at Disneyland with a famous method actor who is just about to go into rehearsals for a show in which he plays a hunchback and you come across a real life, honest-to-goodness hunchback.  Never mind that the hunchback you find is a thousand year old, female Quasimoto, while said famous actor is going to be playing a middle aged man who, aside from the physical deformity of a hunch on his shoulder, is otherwise in perfect health.

It’s not just that we followed this old lady through Disneyland merely observing her movements.  No, no.

I’m not sure if I can adequately convey the sheer mortification I felt as I followed Mandy Pantinkin for miles around Disneyland while he PHYSICALLY MIMICED this poor, crippled old lady.  Hunching over and kind of dragging his left foot behind him, so that just in case they didn’t see him lurking a few paces behind them, inexplicably aping their little, old grandma, they would surely hear the dragging of his shoe across the glimmering asphalt.

Somehow it took someone in this family over an hour to notice us.  The father turned, saw Mandy, hunched over, craning his neck up so he wouldn’t walk into buildings, and gasped.  I took my giant lollipop, which, despite having licked at it for hours was still roughly the size of Rhode Island, and did my best to disappear behind it.

“Oh, my gosh, y’all!” The man hollered.

“Here we go,” I thought.

“Ain’t you Inigo Montoya??”

I could hear Mandy’s spine cracking as he finally unfolded himself into a normal upright position.

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, shit!  HEY GRAMMA!  YOU REMEMBER THAT MOVIE I SHOWED YOU LAST NIGHT?”

“What?” said Gramma.

“This here’s the star!  Shit!”

“I gotta use the toilet,” said Gramma.

Someone shoved a disposable camera in my hand.  I took a picture of Mandy Patinkin and the family and the top of Gramma’s head.

As the day finally came to an end and we headed toward the gate Mandy said,

“It’s been really nice getting to know you.”

Recently someone sent me a link to an interview Mandy gave in which he referred to me as “that little girl.”

It truly was a magical day of bonding.