center stage.....

I recently got some messages regarding my blog and what exactly did I mean by giving it the title, 'No Dress Rehearsals'.

In all honesty, it's just another person's attept at rehashing their hay days of being in the limelight. I probably should have described what the point of this blog was for, but leave it to poor planning.

Here's a synopsis:

I grew up performing most of my life. I started at young age, doing the basic things that most kids do: school plays, Sunday school acts, talent shows, etc. I then got onto the LA Times around the age of 4 and that's when my big head began growing. I mean if I was hitting the news with a good review for playing Joseph in the Nativity scene, I surely was destined for greatness right? I mean I was the father of the Lord at age four. Mind you it was probably the great costume I had, but my aunt's sewing abilities and our families knack for making costumes is a completely different topic.

So from there, I started doing everything I could do to grab attention. Not just attention, but praise. Not just praise, but power. I was naturally getting all the big roles in school: reading the morning prayers in front of the class, doing most of the readings at my kindergarten graduation, first grade class president (as if we needed one) and class president for every year after that.



Then my first theater experience that actually meant something came. I got the lead role of Oliver in our community play that casted my elementary school kids, high school kids and local adults. It was amazing. I knew I hit the big time when I got my first.... wait for it..... lavalier (aka. head mic). From there I was hooked. The costume changes, the solos, the spotlight. Who knew this world where all I had to do was sing a couple songs, pretend I'm someone else, play adventures, wear costumes, and in the end get praise from people you don't know and people you now think you're better than at the age of 10, even existed? Nothing could compare to being on that stage and feeling like I belonged. I went on to do more theater, new projects like Alice in Wonderland and traditional musical theater like Into the Woods. I continued doing other shows like Pride and Prejudice all the up until I graduated college. I even did a national production of Into the Woods.

Like most actors, I never felt like I belonged. It's a weird complex to have and even worst to know you have a complex. I knew something no one knew, I felt somethings that no one could express, and thought things that no one probably would think. I just heard beats, songs and scenes. I joke with Larry that he walks and talks like there's a camera always watching him. Growing up, I had the same kind of feeling but more like I was on stage somewhere and the world was just watching my every move. I think that's one of the weird actors' complex - we feel alone in our views but think everyone is watching us in interest - or at least hope they do. So there is a level of conceit that is required.

After my taste of being a lead in a musical, I caught the performers bug - I needed to be performing for someone somewhere. My parents saw that I had this need and got me into dancing. For all dancers out there, I think they could agree that a dancer is probably just as a bad as an actor. We're constantly analyzing ourselves, looking in the mirror at our imperfections everyday, comparing ourselves to the people we see in the mirror. Talk about creating a complex, put a kid in front of a mirrors for hours on end abusing their body and having an adult speak to them in this foreign language saying hieroglyphic/chinese proverbs terms like "NO, I'm not feeling the terror gripping from your soul in your fingertips!" or "FIERCE! I WANT FIERCE! I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME A FACE THAT SCREAMS GIVE ME RELEASE WITHOUT LOOKING MAD AND SMILE!"......... yes, are you lost too? Because I definitely was.

I got some of the biggest experiences from dancing, touring overseas, performing in front of international dignitaries, performing on stage with international movie and pop starts, dancing in venues like the MGM Grand stadium or on television. Truly, I don't think I would have survived high school and my college days without those years.

I started teaching in the studios assisting choreographers and dancing semi-professionally. I was still focused on school and trying to do the traditional, conventional route for Americans - trying to appease our parents. Well after dancing in a couple dance groups and not really pursuing it full time, I started listening to my parents' voices in my head. I could hear their constant lines saying, "You know dancing isn't going to get you anywhere..... If you finish school at least you know you'll have a paycheck..... How do you plan on raising a family? Dancing will only last you a few years then you're done..... Do you want to end up like those out of work actors who work minimum wage and end up not doing anything?"......

I was really confused at this point. For the past 10 years up until this point, my family put me into the performing arts, and encouraged me to do my best and that I was beyond perfection in all that I did. Then the people who got me involved and gave me the biggest confidence in my talents were all of a sudden not encouraging at all.

I got an offer from one of the choreographers I was working with to teach in Japan. I turned it down out of fear.

I auditioned for my first and major touring production - RENT. I didn't think that much of it since it was a cattle call. Well, wouldn't you know it, years after the audition I get en email from the casting agency, Bernard Telsey casting, saying they wanted me to come in for a final call-back for the role of Angel. I was pretty much done with college and was working/consulting with a great company that had just gave me a full-time job offer. I was scheduled to start the same day as the call-back but the difficulty was that I had to pay for my flight out to New York for the call-back. I asked my family for help at the time and advice. I got the advice that I probably wouldn't get it and that a job at the company was something I worked for a year already, and that it would be time wasted. With all the self doubt in my head and heart that I had developed from the people I depended on the most, family and friends, I didn't attend the call back.......

To this day, not a day goes by that I don't kick myself in heart over the decision I made.

So...... as of the blog, the reason it's named "No Dress Rehearsals".... well, I guess to simply put it - Life sometimes doesn't give you a dress rehearsal for those big events/opportunities that present themself. You just have to do your best.

Here I am, putting myself out there, trying to find who I am again, and this time, and knowing that stages and spotlights are out there....... I just need to work harder to get on them.