Theater as Therapy

April 21, 2011April 22, 2011 / nicholasdaletaylor / 2 Comments

We all have something to say, a story to tell. Where and how does one find an outlet to feel safe, free and liberated?

This past April 17th (last Sunday [my 30th birthday]) I completed what has proven to be the most difficult performance of my life, thus far. Being only a workshop preview presentation containing twenty minutes of my first full-length one man show I had little anxiety until minutes before going before my audience. Realizing another first, before me sat around twenty-five of my dearest Chicago friends along with three supportive representatives of Victory Gardens. While many of these friends are rather close only one of them possessed prior knowledge of my abusive childhood. Two minutes into my piece my mouth had gone as dry as a sour persimmon and twice over I consider stopping and announcing I wasn’t going to continue. However, I barreled forward, rushing, forgetting the basics of projection, spilling over my articulators, going up, leaving out lines simply trying to keep up with my adrenaline level and racing pulse. How did I wind up here?

A week of confession, therapy and self-healing culminating in a public performance on one of the most beautiful stages in the city with nine other exceedingly honest and loving individuals succinctly recounts my week with GLBT performance artist Tim Miller and how I wound up at thirty years old.

Fewer things in this world have made me feel as blessed as this experience. Let’s go back in time to the first week of March. For one week this eclectic cast meets and begins with checking in to see where we stand in our bodies, considering the early parts of the week and the day leading up to our walking into the building. We share. Depending on the day we next engage in a series of exercises hiring images, discovering the space, creating a portrait, feeling comfortable in our skins and using the power of gesture all of which lend to finding the message and text within our core desiring freedom. Many memories and powerful emotions surfaced for us all.

Landscapes of grey painted the mixed dark antics and playful light wits. Speaking of wit, what savvy spilled forth from Deb during the “pussy wants to fuck,” speech! Remembering tiny details and large spaces I think of Scott’s piece and the potent, visceral peeling fingernail and his thoughts of manhood; next, I’m lost in Stephanie’s dark playhouse of a mad childhood. Heather brought us into illuminating light with the continuous “ifs,” eventually thrown back her mother’s way, “If you Mom!” Dennis dealt with inundating truths leaving him unable to stand alone and Brittany’s rattling teeth ticked away at the silence of secrets. Kendall turned towards a personal history with courageous return to the stage embracing the ambivalence of solitude, “I thought it was the clothes.” And in a statuesque soliloquy leaving forever reminiscent memories of the Sears Tower itself Kris gave us a gift of enigmatic “poster child” poetry contained within pictures within pictures.

Without these other nine (including Tim) pioneers of the art I may not have gathered the courage to look my step-father in the face or to go head-on against a promiscuous past and tell the needed tale of truth. Following the culmination of our parts on that Sunday, March 6th evening I was reminded of the necessity for fearless, humble shamelessness. The stories were over and a complete stranger and young friend of Kris tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see her looking at me with her hands out palms up. I instinctively placed my palms on hers. Looking at me with eyes of water she said, “Thank you.” We embraced. Standing, holding and sobbing with a complete stranger that I immediately knew I kept repeating, “I know. I know,” for I knew she knew and words prove meaningless in front of such truths.

This is how I found myself in the midst of a theatrical confession. Childhood trauma travels forever miles in our adult shoes but no one need think they face it alone. Self-inflicted mental anguish regarding sexual identities conflicting with religious dogmas and rubbed raw by social stigmas has gone on long enough in our country. More people who face their shame, own their guilt and share their secrets equals more people carrying the pricey baggage hand in hand; I dream of the day when we can drop it all together.

Until then, I will venture into my story but make a promise to temper the shadow side with rays of radiance and flights of fancy freedom. And for those who are willing to go with me on this journey, look for my invitation to take your seats.

From Four to Five

March 28, 2011March 28, 2011 / nicholasdaletaylor / Leave a comment

While sitting in Uptown’s Crew Bar and Grill having a Blue Moon and some wings I was witness to a bit of magic.

If you’ve ever had a chance encounter that you absolutely new to be something other than coincidence or if you’re like me and simply don’t subscribe to that word then this story involves you.

“You want one of these?” my bar neighbor to my left asks. “No thank you, I’m just waiting on my wings… Aren’t we all?” I reply. “That way I can fly away from this place.” “It’s a nice metaphor,” he says. “I often find myself sharing pitches of flight and fancy freedom,” then I laugh a little loudly at what I just said. This was the ice breaker.

Here I sit sharing with a perfect stranger my 7 day future status of unemployment and here this man sits being a friendly inspiration. We discover a song we both like and through chance of a google app/asking the barkeep find the artist to be Death Cab for Cutie. Next, Linkin Park comes on and I let him know the name. “Are they from Lincoln Park?” I kind of giggle both at the fact no one has ever asked me that question and at being disillusioned to a really good marketing name selection. “It’s like Broadway; almost every major city has a Lincoln Park,” he says. “That’s true, I say.”

Details come with the what do you do’s. He works on algorithyms, discovering the function of different applications and programs and I’m (for 7 more days) a book store manager and total nerd of the written word. Fantastically, he’s a collector and runs through a name of first editions he’s acquired along the way including Atlas Shrugged and The Great Gatsby and A River Runs Through It. My lunch is almost over. I get on a rant about literature, what I want to do, and what I would do with this soon to be vacant Phoenix building of Uptown.

“I’m John,” he says. “I’m Nick.” “Nice to meet you,” we say. We shake.

Having already been a great lunch, I’m paying the bill ready to return to work. Yet, he asks what I have in the works and I briefly elaborate on my endeavors to monetize my skill set that I’ve been playing well with these last few years i.e. hosting, writing, performing and being a pleasant, poetic critic. As he offers words of reassurance and wisdom one line lands particularly well, “No one in America has the insight that you have because of your circumstance and your having lived here. No one.” I smile.

Gathering my coat, he acknowledges he knows the happiness in my future with the go to saying, “blessing in disguise.” Old sayings exist for a reason. They’ve rang true for many, many years. Almost up out of my seat he asks to show me one more thing. I agree, very receptive and curious as he takes out his wallet.

“Everywhere I go, you know, this place isn’t that expensive, if you were ordering another drink I’d by you a beer or something, but anyway, wherever I go I always have four dollars.” He pulls four dollars from his wallet, shows them to me front and back and folds them in half leaving them in his hand. Fascinated, I watch and listen as his story unfolds as do the bills with a flip of his hand and nothing up his sleeve; now he holds five twenty-dollar bills. “So, my friends ask me, ‘John can you do $100s?’ and I tell them yes but I don’t. You see I have to be careful with this power I’ve been given, so that I don’t abuse it otherwise I’ll lose it.”

“I’m a magician.”

“That was fantastic,” I say. “I can do about 50 or 80 others but listening to you I really thought that was the one you needed to see,” and he places the hundred dollars back in his wallet. “All dogmatic association aside, that was truly a blessing for me John, thank you.”

After exchanging contact information and agreeing to drop a line sometime I walk back to my closing store. Cheery as can be and reminded of how time is changing for all of us I remember that we each have our stories and our tricks to share but when do we? When is the last time you’ve ventured into that simple ice breaker? Someone somewhere needs it, however small. Whether a blossoming flower or bursting butterfly or the art of aging, transformation is beauty through every moment we create.

The stranger next to you is only a stranger until you both speak.

Snowy Silhouette Skies

February 2, 2011May 25, 2011 / nicholasdaletaylor / 1 Comment

One month ago I was returning from the New Years trip of my life thus far, today I was reminded of those same skies of Glennie, Michigan.

Eastern dragonesque skies race across my memory as I fondly envision the wisps of Kate’s hair blending with crackles of the outdoor daylight fire while one of my newest friends Ryan sits pensively, occasionally nodding his head into his recently acquired shaman walking stick. I have never seen a more beautiful sky.

While the road trip began 6 days before, driving ’round the great lake from Chicago with a pit stop in Indiana, passing past Bay City (Madonna’s birthplace) and on into the little bear property of 4 log cabins, the actual trip began about 5 hours before it ended.

In my mind I count 9 of us around the great table of the main lodge while we eat our small fill some of which are peanut butter, bananas and, of course, mushrooms before heading outside across the melting lake and into the enigmatic forest of shades.

I warn all that I am very much going my own way but that I would be in and out of their existence and whether they knew it or not that is exactly what we were all in store for that gorgeous day.

Crossing the beaver bridge lent to my moment of filling it come, in the moment, and filling in the others with feelings of welcome as I say, “Welcome to the other side.” Up the hill just a few steps is when it hits Erik, he apologizes, “sorry guys,” only to kneel before the forest to vomit a couple of times. Walking by, I notice he’s alright and continue on my way with the flighty fairy named Amanda close behind immersed in moment after moment of fantastic jubilation.

At one point, I stopped, overwhelmed, noting where I was, standing, as just two nights previous I heard Kate’s voice scream across the lake, “Help! Wolves!” Eric and I had been searching for a concerned minute as she had disappeared for the last hour. She screamed; I bolted as quickly as one can through 2 feet snow drifts, down the hill towards the lake; We met. She collapsed once she reached snowy footing away from the ice. It was night. “There were eyes, all around me, eleven of them,” Kate said. “It’s o.k., you’re safe now. I had my knife ready, you see? Just in case I had to fight them away.” She took no notice past her own racing heart, aching knees and prolonged breaths. Eric reached us, “Why would you do that Kate?” After a breath, “I was just walking; I don’t know. I just wanted to be alone man.”

But I realize I’m in the past now and keep walking past the place I’ve never seen but know only to well. I hear another yell, this time from the other side of the lake; I’m in her place and she in mine. Dennis is with her as Eric was with me. “Wooooooooooooo-uh!” She calls with vivid lingering echo through our isolated heaven of escape. I quicken my pace walking through overwhelming colors of autumn somehow left untouched by the breath of mother winter. The ground plants appear monstrous and somehow I know that I’m a part of this great vision that I can somehow view and yet simultaneously realize I am not separate from any form I see. I stand at the edge of the lake flooded with arrays of light breaking the stratus and bending off glacious fragments of iridescent ice. The bridge I crossed is now across from me in this sight. It is day. Flowing winds are my emotions as they carry me closer to the lodge and away from my crossed over companions some of which remain very new to this bifurcated reality. Andrew and Cristin, Ryan’s brother Kevin and his friend Brendan some of which were and some of which were not but all of which were still on the other side in their own adventures and mesmerizing laughs and guffaws are a few to name.

Yet here I am knowing my story, past the fire and the ice and the strands of Kate’s hair on up into the breath-taking sight of the glorious sky and full on touches from an ever moving pugnaciously effervescent gale. It was mine. It was ours. We were loved and smiled upon. And amidst today’s state of emergency blizzard aftermath of Chicago 2011, on a walk with Robert, I saw an almost same sky beyond the outline of reminiscence.