The Great Pause

I’ll start with the understanding that countless lives have faced upheaval, disaster, and tragedy this past year. COVID-19 has ended the lives of millions across the globe, wreaked havoc upon world-wide markets (the consequences of which we will not fully realize for years to come), and has even been used as a political cudgel to further divide an already shaken public. I am — and have been — profoundly fortunate, and I recognize I am walking away from this immensely challenging year with far fewer scars than most. I have my loving and hard-working family to thank for that.

In March of 2021, I was staring down the barrel of a great many opportunities: my Brown/Trinity Rep Showcase, an ensemble role in Trinity Repertory’s Sweeney Todd, my 3rd Year Recital, performing in Theater at Monmouth’s Summer Repertory, playing the lead role in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at TAM, and remounting a production of The Turn of the Screw with a few classmates of mine in New York come late Fall. Obviously, by the time late April came around, all of these plans were either postponed or tanked altogether. Needless to say, the launch of my illustrious acting career after three grueling years of training was not quite what I expected it to be… However, God blessed me with a sense of clarity and unbridled optimism in the face of catastrophe. And so, after a few weeks of binging unhealthy food and unhealthier media, I got my shit together and got to it.

Theater at Monmouth’s Measure for Measure, Provost. Photo by: Michelle Handley

Theater at Monmouth’s Measure for Measure, Provost. Photo by: Michelle Handley

Over the last 9 months I:

  • Submitted a full-length screenplay for my grad school thesis and then graduated from said school; took up swimming

  • Began learning Japanese daily

  • With the help of the rest of the Board of Directors, helped guide this summer’s iteration of The Vineyard Sound through its most challenging year yet

  • Drove across country with my father

  • Did some serious Spring-cleaning in my family’s house in Maine

  • Did some serious drinking

  • Completed my CorePower Yoga 200 Hour Teacher Training training and received my certificate

  • Performed the role of Angelo in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure at Theater at Monmouth (following strict CDC/WHO guidelines — I am especially proud of this feat)

  • Did some more serious drinking

  • Produced, curated, and performed in a Virtual “Showcase 2.0” with members from the class of 2020 at Brown/Trinity Rep, watch it here (shoutout Adam Elder for his wonderful work)

  • Shot a short horror about a young man uncovering the truth behind his sister’s disappearance and how it concerns an ancient creature that can steal and replicate a voice, coming soon

  • Began teaching yoga at Way to Be Wellness yoga studio in Kennebunk, Maine

  • Ran my first 5K (in full Santa garb)

  • And drank spent more consecutive weeks with my family than I thought I ever would.

Production still of the “Showcase 2.0”

Production still of the “Showcase 2.0”

In short, this year, however frustrating and crushing it was at times, has been a profound gift. It took a lot of tears and my fair share of self-sabotaging behavior, but I managed to turn this Loss into a Win, and no one can take that from me.

Books I read:

  • The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

  • Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

  • CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Dan Piepenbring and Tom O’Neil

  • The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

  • The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglass Murray

Movies I watched:

  • The Lighthouse

  • Parasite

  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

  • My Man Godfrey

  • The Philadelphia Story

  • Jojo Rabbit

  • Dirty Harry

  • Resident Evil 1

  • Ikiru

  • Rashomon

  • The Social Dilemma

  • Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

  • The Thin Man

  • After the Thin Man

Television I watched:

  • Kimetsu no Yaiba season 1

  • Shingeki no Kyojin Final Season

  • JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Parts 1 through 5… feel free to judge me)

  • The Mandalorian season 2

  • Star Wars the Clone Wars season 7