The Stage Manager.

I was a math major when I first started college. Yes. Really. I don't know what I thought my destination was, but I liked math. Math had answers. As I look back, it confuses even me. I'd been instrumental in the drama department at my high school. I'd done theatre in kindergarten. I wrote a play in first grade. (We toured it to all the other classrooms. It was a hit.) Theatre was always my one true love. Maybe, at 17, I didn't have the confidence to fulfill my destiny. Clearly, I found the courage. (I still like math. But, then in theatre we all have our little quirks.)

I got a California Teaching Credential in Grad School. I did this because my parents (who were paying for my education) wanted me to have something to "fall back on." I got a teaching job straight out of college. Teaching theatre, I should say "Drama". I found I loved teaching, but didn't know what I was really teaching. I didn't want to teach educational theatre. I wanted to "know." And, to "know" I had to do it. I left teaching and "did it." I didn't go back to high school teaching. I became a professional. I love working in legitimate theatre. Ultimately, I was offered an adjunct professorship at USC teaching what I'd been doing for 17 years at the time. Stage Managing. I still teach a class a semester, in stage managing. I love it. And it allows me to continue doing what I do best. Stage Managing. (29 years now.)

Something people don't understand. Stage Managers are not on their way to becoming... anything other than what they are. This is an end job. We don't want to act. Most of us can't act, god, don't ask us to. We are not directors. We can direct. It is part of our job, but we don't create a piece from whole cloth. We are enablers. We make the vision happen. We are technicians and we are artists. But it is a very particular art. My ambition has carried me all over the country and into the world. As a Stage Manager. It is my calling. I'm convinced. After all these years, I still don't want to do anything else. Not really. Oh, I will say, "I would of liked to do research, or, I would have loved to have written poetry or been a journalist or.. whatever."

No, the Peter Principle will not apply. I won't rise to the level of my own incompetence. I will stay where I am happy and my work is good.

I don't need the accolades after all. I am behind the scenes, yet, performing every night.