#SOBLESSED: the Annoying Actor Friend's Guide to Werking in Show Business (16 page)

My response from people on the show was mostly
positive. Some cast members complimented me on the recaps and some thought I
was Wesley Taylor. I am not Wesley Taylor. I promise you Wesley Taylor has much
more productive things to do with his time. There were also people involved
with the show that I knew personally, and I think they may have been thrown by
my very public and critical analysis. This was difficult for me to explain
because I was freely able to say whatever I wanted to while hiding behind a
persona. I tried to play it off like I was writing some meta essay commenting
on the general stiff-handing of
Smash
by the industry, and not the show
itself – but who was I kidding? I guarantee nobody read it for what I was
masquerading it as. There were plenty of recaps out there and I believe mine
was the only one that tried to get more “insiderey” than
Smash
itself.
Smash
may have had references to Jennifer Damiano and Jessie Mueller, but I made
jokes about Corey Cott never having to ever attend an EPA. There was a niche
audience I had attracted and once again, I fell victim to the attention.

It was not until after my fourth recap of
Smash
that a reader chastised me for not being Rachel Shukert at
The Vulture
, and
that I should cease writing immediately. Having never heard of Rachel Shukert,
I decided to look into her
Smash
recaps to see for myself. After reading
a recap where Ms. Shukert artfully equated the character of Karen Cartwright to
the human equivalent of something far more obscure and witty than anything I had
ever written, it registered what all the talk was about. Point being, had I
known about Rachel Shukert’s recaps, I never would have started writing my own.
I realize that is like saying, “Had I known people could sing higher, dance
better, and act stronger than me, I never would have pursued musical theatre in
the first place.”

The most thrilling part of the process came when cast
members and writers of
Smash
shared my recaps, but nothing was more
mind-blowing than a rumor that one of Steven Spielberg’s assistants
might
be a reader. Upon hearing this, I desperately tried to get Mr. Spielberg’s
attention by drafting a public letter to the famous director, suggesting how he
could help boost
Smash
’s ratings by incorporating elements from his
films into the series. I spent three days with a free online movie font
generator and the screen capture function, archaically reconstructing classic artwork
by shoehorning
Smash
references into film posters of
Jaws
,
Indian
Jones
,
Schindler’s List,
and others. Of all the content I ever published
about
Smash
, the blog dedicated to Steven Spielberg was my proudest
moment. Come on –
Indiana Jones and the Second Hand White Baby Grand
?
I thought that was genius. It bombed. No matter how many times I tweeted the
link, I could not generate traffic for that blog post. I guess the audience for
supernatural Broadway themed action films is limited. The first scene in
Indian
Jones and the Temple of Doom
is of the Rockettes kicking to “Anything Goes,”
sung almost completely in Mandarin. That actually happened. How could a
representation of the
Schindler’s List
poster re-imagined as
Hit List
be so off target and underappreciated? It goes to show that even when you think
you have written the smartest, wittiest content, or found the sixteen bars that
show you off best, or know in your heart that you are exactly the type they are
looking for, you just might be wrong. You just might not be what the people
behind the table see when they close their eyes.

Then
Smash
ended. Megan Hilty and Rachel
Shukert moved to Los Angeles. Jeremy Jordan did a movie. Krysta Rodriguez went
back to Broadway. Katharine McPhee made an album. Everyone else moved on and I
was left alone in my quest to feign relevance. I needed a new prospect. That
was when I got inspired to take my “SMASH Don’t Give a Shit!” writing style and
apply it to this analysis of what life is like for aspiring actors and
actresses in today’s world. In lieu of trying to find a publisher, literary
agent, and anything else a serious writer might do, I poured over my computer
for about three months, gave it a brief once-over with a friend or two, and
uploaded it myself onto Amazon. As far as I was concerned, I had spent enough
time pounding the pavement in real life, I certainly was not going to do the
same when it came to my after school activity.

Looking back on this experience, I cannot help but
acknowledge how it affected me. It began as a stupid joke. I was frustrated
with my friends, of course, but none of what I was doing ever stemmed from
malice. If I were lucky, perhaps it would spread a little awareness. Maybe I
could stop one college kid, professional actor, friend, or myself from making
someone feel worse about his or her own status quo – or at least from
projectile vomiting their Cheerios across the room. Once people started to
agree with me, the entire accidental experiment progressed into a means for
attention.

 Ironically, the very tool I was using to poke
fun at attention-starved behavior on social media was providing me with a
platform to attract the positive recognition I did not realize I needed myself.
It went from being a silly distraction to a serious obsession. Should I tweet
that? How can I turn this current event into a theatre-related joke? How many
followers did I get today? Did I have a solid amount of retweets this week?
Refresh the mentions. Tweet something. Wait. Refresh the mentions. Repeat
– I became exactly what I was satirizing.

Perhaps, during my trendy gravitation toward the
bitter and jaded cynical side of the psyche that is too often encouraged in
this business, I forgot what it was like to be fucking super excited about
something. The only thing that stopped me from posting on my Facebook about how
cool I thought it was that Rob Delaney favorited one of my tweets or that I was
being followed by multiple verified accounts, was the fact that saying anything
would have blown my cover. Having that crucial filter taught me that while I
was ecstatic about those random accomplishments, who really gave a shit about
my parody Twitter account? In a very short time, I went from hating annoying
actors, to empathizing with them, to becoming them, to ultimately learning that
restraint is possible, and that participating in annoying actor friend behavior
is not something I’ll ever do – but I understand it.

My time playing Bruce Wayne to Annoying Actor Friend
has taught me that tact and appropriate social media behavior is sometimes a
grey area. I have friends who need their successes noted and those who do not. I
have found that I fall somewhere in the middle. Perhaps the best option for us
is to understand what we need as an artist and find a way to get it without
being offensive, or learn that we do not “need” it as much as we thought we
did. If we can all find a way to be socially aware while walking the line of
obnoxiousness, maybe our little world will be a slightly less douchey place.

A categorized look back at tweets from Annoying Actor
Friend’s first year.

#Blessed…

if you say “#blessed” in the
mirror three times a non-equity kid will appear & tell you he’s getting his
card with his Broadway debut.

Somewhere in my youth or
childhood, I must have done something good. #SoBlessed

I
feel like I'm drowning in a sea of audition material, but the truth is I'm drowning
in a sea of blessings!

Every time #Blessed trends
on Twitter, some kid books a Broadway show right out of college.

I need to start counting
blessings instead of sheep. #insomnia

I'm soy blessed I became
vegan.

I’ve had #blesseder days.

Bonjour! Je suis béni. #BastilleBlessed

I crapped rose petals this
morning. #bowelblessed

It took me nine months but I
finally got death threats! I feel #SoBlessed. It really goes to show what
happens when you put in the #werk.

Current Topics & Events…

I haven't been tweeting much
lately because I'm working on my craft. And by, "working on my
craft," I mean watching Orange is the New Black.

Orange is the New Callback.

Johnny Depp as Tonto brings
new meaning to the phrase, "All ethnicities are encouraged to
attend."

$5 to the first SAG actor to
change their name to North West so that kid has to use her middle initial when
she gets her own reality show.

Happy Father's Day! Here's
to the guy who was supportive when I was like, "I'm not into sports, but I
hear Annie is in town!" #thanksdad

That final "Game of
Thrones" scene was a fairly honest metaphor for a chorus call when you're
over 30. #cutthroat #notblessed

Whoever scheduled the Tonys
on the same night as the Game of Thrones finale is one sick fuck.

NBC took a bigger dump on
Broadway this week than the impostor Cookie Monster I saw squatting in the
corner of the 50th St 1 train platform.

With all the countries
passing Marriage Equality, it feels like "So Long, Fare Well" and
America is dumb ass Gretl passed out on the steps.

Why
did I accept his friend request? I don't know. We had 47 red equal signs in
common...

As that one girl in HAIR
once said, "As Mary Magdalene once said, 'Jesus, I'm getting stoned!'
" #happy420

Seeing
what Grumpy Cat has achieved by her first birthday gives me the same feeling as
when I see "Class of '12" in a Playbill bio.

I
wonder if Anne Frank would have been a Fansie... Probably a Renthead.
Definitely not a Jekkie.

I
live every day like it's Good Friday... always #nailingit.

Happy
Easter! Do you know where I can find an egg-white coloring kit?

Am I in charge of bringing
the ball gags to Sondheim's sex dungeon tonight? I don't want to ruin his
birthday. AGAIN.

It's St. Patrick's Day, so
I'll be giving you "Erin go Bragh-dway" at today's matinée.

Choosing the new Pope better
not be as arduous as that Karen or Ivy as Marilyn bullshit.

I think we should select the
new Pope like that GREASE reality TV show. But I'd be torn between Ballerina
Pope and Bellhop Pope.

NEWSFLASH: Amanda Seyfried
'eyes role' in Wicked film and my eyes 'actually' roll.

The Broadway production of
ORPHANS is replacing the kid from Even Stevens with the kid from Flash Forward.
#ThatsSoRaven

I was going to give up
social media for Lent, but then where would I post daily status updates about
what I gave up for Lent?

Don't fault the 49ers for
their terrible game play. I don't think any man from San Fran can breathe after
Beyonce’s halftime performance.

The SAG Awards: The night we
give trophies to the people who took our jobs all year.

JANUARY: A time when my friends
litter the streets with dead Christmas trees and I litter my friends' newsfeed
with inspirational quotes.

Tomorrow is the end of the
world? And here I thought the world ended when I had to work sample sales for a
month.

I don't need to dress up as
Santa to get drunk before noon. I just need to get typed out of a chorus call. #santacon

Happy 12/12/12! When I see
that many 12s on a calendar it usually only means one thing: I'm in tech! #10outta12Realness

Today is Black Friday. Or,
as many in our business prefer to call, "All ethnicities are encouraged to
attend Friday."

I'm never sorry. Always #grateful.
#SondheimThanksgivingThoughts

“Hurricane
Sandy" sounds like a name for one of the girls on that terrible GREASE
reality TV show.

Kickstarter…

Hey, guys! PLEASE donate to
that thing I'm doing!

Mountain Dew has a new
energy drink called Kickstart. Does that mean I have to ask my friends for
$2.99 to drink it?