By Sept 2002 I had lived in LA for over a year, had been to a crazy number of auditions, and I wasn’t getting anywhere.  I was working a desk job to ‘pay the bills’ and ‘fall back in case acting didn’t pan out’, but I reached a point where I realized I didn’t move to LA to hide behind mediocrity and everybody else’s expectations.  So I quit my secure, 9-5 well paying job.  Since then I’ve been working towards a future that I wasn’t sure about, never really knowing how it would unfold, nor how long it would take for me to realize my dreams.  I just knew I didn’t belong behind a desk.

This journey began with me facing my fears and inadequacies (I was a stand-up not a writer) by writing and staging the seminal scenes of my bare bones solo show Basic Training during acting classes, the first of which was taught by Jeffrey Tambor.

The success of Basic Training has taken me to more cities than I can remember, won more awards than I can name and sold more tickets than I care to count.

But it wasn’t an agent or a manager, nor was it some gatekeeper ‘discovering me’ that made the difference.  It started with me creating an opportunity for myself.  Broke and on the ropes, I had to create to survive.

People see the names attached to the recent Humanitas New Voices television development deal based on my show and they assume that these well heeled and famous television execs came on board early on and whisked me away to Hollywood board rooms and pitch sessions with the greatest of ease.  I won’t list the names of the execs here because the name dropping isn’t necessary, but suffice to say you know their work.  And that’s not the way it happened.  I had to build it, and build it…and build it.  And then I had to seek them out.  Yes, there were introductions along the way.

Here’s what I learned:  If you want a break, create it.

I had to get my ass kicked in acting class, take the show out on the road to Fringe festivals, go back to class, listen to countless agents and casting directors tell me that it was time to write something new, and then keep writing and rehearsing while working four shitty jobs like stocking shelves at Albertson’s Grocery Store on midnight shift with ex-cons, sometimes sleeping in my truck or wherever I could crash.

Whether you’re an actor or not, waiting for someone to give you a break is a dead end.  Will yourself to failure, seek out people smarter than you and listend to them but don’t worship them, and mediocrity won’t become your legacy.

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Pick yourself.

Instead of telling you about all the things I did right on my journey to Broadway I thought I’d dive a bit deeper and share some of my mistakes and regrets.

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You’ve probably guessed by now that the premise of this blog is ’stop waiting for someone to give you a career and go make it happen’.

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At GigSmacked.com we honestly believe that success in your career lies within your ability to take control and play to your strengths instead of waiting for some agent or producer to notice you.

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I feel pretty strongly about this because I lived it.  Audition after audition.  Meeting after meeting.  Sending headshots with no response.  Taking class after class feeling empty but obliged.  The decision to write my own show and take it to Broadway was a result of these frustrations.

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These are some of the missteps (limited room here) I made during the five years it took me to get my show from unknown commodity to Off Broadway success story:

• No Famous Man (or Woman) Is An Island:  Barry Josephson (Enchanted, Bones) was one of the biggest supporters of my talent and career and I’m eternally thankful for that.  But our strategy of putting it on his shoulders; thinking Barry could single-handedly take my show to Broadway on his own, was silly.  It’s just not humanly possible.  Recovery:  I took the show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2007 and it sold out.  As a result I found more producers to get the show to New York alongside Barry.  Lesson:  A star player can win any game.  A team can win every game.
• Don’t talk about it. Just do it!  It was May of 2004 that I got the first offer to take my show to Broadway.  As I toured Canada that year to critical acclaim I told every journalist who interviewed me about those plans and how imminent they were.  Had I known it would take until 2008 I would’ve never uttered a word.  Recovery:  There is no recovery.  I just looked like a boob for four years.  Lesson:  Shut up and work.
• Okay For Now.  There are several images and videos on the Internet that do not represent the quality or integrity that myself or my brand are known for.  I was presented these products at a time when I didn’t have the money to do anything better so I caved in and allowed them to be distributed for the Broadway run.  Bad idea.  The Internet is forever.  A whole lot of nothing is better than a handful of mediocrity.  Recovery:  I got a professional photo shoot done and I am replacing the mediocre with the awesome.  Lesson:  When it comes to quality there is no gray area.  Insist on the best because you hit what you aim at.

For a more in depth view of how a Broadway show is built and the risks involved I highly recommend renting ‘Show Business’ (excerpt above).  It’s a great fly-on-the-wall documentary for those of you who want to do full scale theatre whether it’s onstage or backstage.

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