June 16th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

When I was a bright-eyed drama freshman in high school, our teacher, the wise Mr. Brower, was explaining to us why we shouldn’t be disappointed if we were type-cast.  For those who might not know what that is, it’s when you always seem to play a similar character.  The goofy best friend, the villain or the romantic lead.  Actors are often stuck in that kind of place because of a certain look or attitude.  Think Jim Carrey as the goofy guy or Sandra Bullock in romantic comedies.

As an example, Mr. Brower used a girl named Lisa, who was a legend among the drama students at our school.  Lisa had been a lead in many of the plays and won many competitions and we all knew about her and worshipped her for her success.  She had, however, never been cast as the romantic lead in a musical.

He explained to us that Lisa came to him one day after she had been cast in Mame not as the lead, as she’d hoped, but as Vera, the older, dramatic best friend.  She was devastated because she felt she had the talent and had earned the lead.  He let her cry it out and then helped her to understand that she was going to be perfect as Vera and that sometimes, people just aren’t cut out to play certain rolls.  Lisa was one of the people that might have to accept that she may never be the romantic lead.  She would probably always be cast as the weird best friend or side kick.  But then he said something I have always thought was profound, and probably way above any high school student’s head.  He told her that because of how unique she was, there would always be a role for her, at any age, at any time.  Someone cut out to play a romantic lead doesn’t always have that luxury and they may not have parts to play for life.

I have found so many ways that the art of acting applies to real life, but this lesson has been the one that was the hardest - but most rewarding to come to understand.

I believe that we all came to this planet with a special personality and special talents.  They are ours to cultivate and make wonderful.  They enhance our lives and make us special and unique.  They are amazing.

Then.  THEN.  We see someone with a talent we don’t have and we’re jealous that we don’t have it.  It’s human nature, and it’s going to happen all the time.  I don’t see anything wrong with that part.  There are several options for what we can do next. 

We could try out that other talent.  Give it a little taste and see how it settles.  Sometimes we find OHMAGOSH it’s a talent we’ve had hidden that we didn’t know about it!  It’s amazing!  Now we’ve found something else amazing we can do and we can run with it and cultivate it and show it off and be ever more awesome.

Other times we try it out and we can DO it but we don’t necessarily enjoy it - or we totally and completely suck at it, and that’s OK.  It looks fun when someone else does it but we think “meh.”  So we walk away to look for something else, glad we tried but not wanting to go there ever again.

The third option is that we try and try and try and no matter what we do, we don’t posses the ability to do it but somehow, that’s not an answer.  We fixate on it and try and try and try.  And we get angry and frustrated and then we start to resent the people who have such an easy time doing it.  That’s when this talent becomes a big problem.

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with wanting something so badly that we keep going and trying and pushing.  Many of the world’s greatest achievements were brought to pass because someone wanted something SO badly that they never ever ever gave up.

However, if our trying and trying and trying takes over our lives and becomes an obsession and starts to cause hurt and disappointment to ourselves and those around us.  Sometimes, we’re just not equipped to do something and allowing it to take over our lives will cause problems we can’t even comprehend. Basically, it might be time to “slowly step away from the talent.” 

So, let’s bring it back to Lisa.  She was SO amazingly talented and one of the finest actresses I’ve ever seen.  She went on to do amazing, wonderful things.  I continued to worship her through college as she lead the school in successes in the theatre.  However, as Mr. Brower had predicted, she wasn’t ever cast as the romantic lead.  She played hilarious, strong, vibrant women but was never the ingenue.  And it was OK because she was HERSELF and she was incredible.

There have been so many times in my life where I felt the way that Mr. Brower described Lisa feeling - like I’d earned something that was given to someone else or was overlooked because of the way I looked or expressed myself.  I so often feel judged for things that are part of who I am and really, a lot of things about myself that I’m proud of.  If I wanted to start counting, the missed opportunities, “stolen” leads, disappointments and lost friendships would fill my entire house.  I’ve had to gain a lot of perspective to be OK with some of these things.  I’m proud of my ability to sing in a middle voice placement without trying but it means I’ve always struggled with classical placement and voice.  I’m built strong with lots of muscle and am proud of my body, but it means I am not slender, I’m not graceful and I certainly will never be a size 4.  I failed every single dance proficiency test I had to take in college for my Music DANCE Theatre degree.  Every.  Single.  One.  But I never failed a single acting or singing one.  Like Lisa, I will never be cast as the romantic lead (unless it’s Fanny Brice) because of my size, my stature, my voice and my face.  But it’s OK because the roles I’ve been able to play have been awesome and fun and wonderful.  My entire life has been awesome.  More than awesome.  AMAZING.

Thanks to Mr. Brower’s wise words, a lot of hard life lessons and even more growing up, I’ve learned a lot about not adding up the disappointments and failures and keeping them in my back pocket as a way to prove how hard my life has been.  I’ve realized that if at first we don’t succeed, we try, try again.  And maybe again and again, but sometimes, some things aren’t meant to be and we need to accept our individual gifts and not go out seeking new ones which are beyond our grasp.  We need to be at peace with who and what we are.  We need to try new things and stretch ourselves and grow, but not be angry when the rubber band snaps and we find we might have failed at something we wanted so badly it hurt.  We need to look back and gather up the pieces, learn what went wrong, what went right, and move on with new perspective and the knowledge that we are what we are and what we are is unbelievably amazing.