What's my motivation?!

This has been a summer of challenges.  I desperately miss my friends who are at various music festivals this summer, living as full-time artists…full-time, non-starving artists.  At this time last year, I was on stage with Jeremy Irons and Helen Mirren.  This year, I’m alone in a studio apartment.  During these challenging periods, I am prone to wallowing and asking, what am I doing wrong?  When do I give up? Am I kidding myself?  However, I’m often neglecting the most important question: Why am I doing this?

In order to find the why, I have to go back to the when.  I have to think back to why I started singing in the first place, and why this is one of few things I’ve tried that I’ve never quit.  I can’t remember a time when music was not a part of my life.   Even in the womb, I was surrounded by music, as my mother was a choir teacher in North Carolina.  As a child in California, I vividly remember my mother brushing and braiding my hair before school while running warm-up exercises with her girls’ choir.  I always loved singing, and even when I wasn’t singing, I was infamous for my piercing, high-pitched squeals that suggested I was a true diva training.  I grew up singing in church, in choirs, community theater, and around the family upright piano.  I listened to my older brother’s beautiful tenor voice singing Pippin and tried to find my own soprano lilt and corner of the sky.   Even through high school, Jeff and I spent hours singing tirelessly around the house.  Why?  Because it felt good.   It was that simple.  We did it because we could and we did it wherever anyone would listen.  It was ice cream for the soul.  I never thought, “Ugh, I HAVE to sing today…” a phrase I’ve uttered more times than I care to admit over the past two months. 

I will never forget the first live musical I saw.  I can’t remember my exact age, probably around seven, but it was Big River at the Starlight Theater in San Diego.  The experience was transformative, despite the cast pausing for planes overhead and the fact that I got so excited I spilled my Kool-Aid Squeeze-It on a woman’s pantsuit, leading to yelling on her part and tears on mine.  I was hooked, though, and grew up adoring musical theater the way I can only imagine normal people grow up loving sports.

Almost ten years later, I saw my first opera.  I saw La Boheme the night before my junior prom, and it just as romantic as going to prom with my gorgeous high school crush.  I cried all the way through Puccini’s masterpiece, and this time, Squeeze-Its had nothing to do with it.  When I heard Musetta’s “Quando me’n vo” for the first time, I clearly remember saying, “I want to do that.”  I knew my friends wouldn’t understand.  I told them I saw Rent.  I almost forgot about that monumental Musetta moment but it came rushing back to me Wednesday night before musical improv class, when pianist Frank Spitznagel was playing the aria at the piano.  Sure, it’s not quite my ‘fach,’ so to speak, but I jumped in and blasted the Magnet Training Center with my own rendition.  Because no one in the room was terribly familiar with Boheme, I didn’t worry about singing the right words or paying attention to performance practices, I just embraced the opportunity to have my first opera jam in years, and even had a Marcello had in mind.   I can’t remember the last time I turned my judgmental brain off while singing, but I know will remember the newfound freedom I felt Wednesday night.

Freedom in performance was what brought me back to improv after so many years of admiring the art, but vowing to avoid participating in it.  My brother and I first started improvising when we were elementary school students attending Arts Between the Tracks theater day camp.  When we weren’t rehearsing for the big show, teachers Randy and Doug taught us improv games, and no game of capture the flag or arts and crafts activity could compare.  Jeff and I would come home from camp and study comedy like it was our job, and write and film sketches that, looking back, were both terrible and offensive!  Jeff and I lived the Kids and the Hall answering machine sketch before it was ever aired and still leave each other unusual messages after the “Eek.”  Somewhere in my life after Arts camp, I remembered I was a naturally introverted person, and lost any desire to improvise in front of an audience.  I still loved the art and went to shows constantly, but whenever performers asked if I would participate as an audience member, the fear of failure came over me and I forgot how to speak.  A ferocious shake of the head got them to move on to a more willing audience member.  It was the combination of improvisation and opera that brought back my desire to perform spontaneously and I am so grateful for the wonderful people and opportunities improv has brought into my life.  However, as opera has given me numerous struggles, I’m finding my confidence in improvising struggling as well.  My desire to hide in the audience is creeping in and I’m finding myself returning to the question, why?  Why am I nervous again?  Why can’t I just play like I did at Arts Between the Tracks?

I want to explore my motivation for all of my regular activities in my New York life. I know why I work; my monthly rent keeps that fresh in my brain.  However, I want to rediscover why I practice yoga.  There was a time when I did it because I loved it, not because I was afraid I would gain weight if I didn’t.  My operatic and yogi inspiration, Priti Gandhi, was the reason yoga became an art form for me, and I need more of her ohm in my home.  Even with the things that have ended, like friendships or relationships, I am looking back at why that person was brought into my life, not why they exited it.  I have enough factors contributing to a life of spinsterhood, I don’t need any extra bitterness contributing to it.

So, until the universe plops a timely fortune cookie or magic eight ball into my hand, I’ll have to continue asking my questions and searching for my own answers.  And each new lesson will be brought to me by the letter Y.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

George Bernard Shaw

Saturn and the City

After a whirlwind April, May came and brought bronchitis, leaving me with a lot of time in bed, contemplating the universe and my purpose in it.   Free time and cold medicine are never a good combination for me; my mind tends to run even more than my nose.  Monotony + Mucinex = Existential Crisis.

To put all of this in perspective, a brief synopsis of the past month: first, I covered Zemire in Zemire und Azor at Liederkranz Opera.  In the cover “performance,” I realized just how elated I become every time I perform an operatic role.  This role was a big one to learn, but the payoff came at the end of the onerous aria before the finale of the opera.  It was thrilling to bring my own ideas and opinions to the role and make some really exciting musical and dramatic choices.  It was difficult to return to my small speaking role for the remaining performances, almost like a postpartum letdown.   Since the opera closed, I’ve been dwelling on the painful question, “Will I ever get to sing a role again, or am I doomed to be an understudy (at best)?”  Watching friends leave for their prestigious summer apprenticeships feels like extra salt in the wound. 

Meanwhile, as I fear my operatic career has stalled, my day job has ascended to a position with more responsibility and commitment.  I enjoy working in the field of health and weight loss, but it sometimes tempts me to lose sight of my musical aspirations and settle for something less fulfilling, but also less heartbreaking.  I know if I throw in the towel now, I’ll lose the pain of the operatic rejection, but in time, I’ll gain long-term resentment. 

The more these big life issues weigh on my and circle around my ailing head, the more I start to ponder the return of Saturn.  Until recently, I thought Saturn Returns was just an Adam Guettel composition, but it is also said to be an event in a person’s life that takes place around age twenty-eight, when Saturn returns to its original degree in orbit as when the person was born.  This occurrence can bring sobering, critical realities and lead to momentous life choices.  It explains why my Facebook feed is constantly announcing new relationships, engagements, and new babies from everyone my age.   My brother was twenty-eight when he got married and made a significant career commitment as well.  He was the first to tell me about Saturn’s return.  The celebrity deaths that fall into the category “27 Club” are often attributed to this cosmic occurrence as well.  I don’t have any strong opinions regarding the cause of death of Amy Winehouse, but I know I’m feeling a strong pull to make changes in my own life.  Maybe it’s something in the galaxy, maybe it’s something in the pile of bills that keeps growing, but something in me is stirring.

Since I’m often convinced the universe revolves around me, this orbital occurrence is very distressing.  I’m spending a lot of time contemplating my values, priorities, and dreams.  I am not going to blame the galaxy (entirely) on my shortcomings; instead I am going to dedicate myself to mastering my own trajectory.   I’ve probably spent far too much time obsessing over each moment of my previous auditions, but I’m trying to get at the root of what is keeping me from reaching my goal of working as an artist on a more regular basis.  I feel like I’m hitting an invisible wall while singing. Is one of those planetary rings obstructing my path?  I need to play Space Invaders on my own impediments.   While I continue my attempts at bettering myself in front of a casting panel, I also want to cast myself in a completely new project, something that will be tailored to my passions and peculiarities.  I plan to develop this artistic project just as I plan to develop myself as an artist.  Since I am in the planning stages still, I have little more to divulge, but I’m announcing this project to you because telling you and the universe will keep me committed.  After all, once you say something on the internet, it must be true! 

I also plan to use this summer to explore other craters on my little planet.  I am attending retreats to increase my focus on Alexander Technique and improv.  I will refine my spine and my sense of humor.    I also long for some warmth from a son… as in a young single gentleman (from Mars, perhaps?).   I don’t want to explore the final frontier alone.  Even if a summer romance burns out like a white dwarf (hell, he could even BE a white dwarf), it could guide me to the next constellation in my galaxy.   (I wanted to make an astronaut reference at this point, but I worried word play with Tang would be horribly misconstrued.)

If Leonard Nimoy hadn’t spoken at the Boston University College of Fine Arts commencement this past week, I don’t know if I would have looked to the stars for guidance.   With that, I’ll polish off this Milky Way bar, then put one pointy ear to the ground and the other to the sky in order make the best of this orbit.  May we all find our place in this universe as we do our best to live long and prosper.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. - Carl Sagan

I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. - Woody Allen

An egg in the hand...

The hunt for happiness can feel like an endless Easter egg hunt.  The thrill of the chase is exciting, as I desperately search for what is hidden, hoping I will walk away with a collection of colorful trinkets to fill my basket.  Sometimes I find something beautiful or colorful.  But sometimes I find something sweet, so sweet it that results in a bellyache later. Sometimes I’m convinced my basket has a hole and whatever I place in it will fall out and leave me empty later.  Sometimes I question whether the notion is real or just a game to keep me running around and peeking in every crevice I encounter.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m too late and someone has already snatched up my hard-boiled bliss. 

Spring has sprung and I’m waiting for my spirits to follow suit.  If you’ve been reading, you’ll know this year has had its trials and as a result, I feel like I’m carrying a little extra baggage with me around the Upper West Side.   I love yaptracker.com, but if I use it to actually look at my track record as a singer, I can’t help but see it as a failing report card.  Every time I click “No offer” or “No audition,” I have to ignore a tiny voice that whispers, “I wasn’t enough,” or “Another one bites the dust.”  Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if every aspect of life had a tracker like the one for young artists.   I’ve had a lot of drama—actually, “drama” makes it sounds more thrilling than it is—in my search for the well-hidden relationship egg and through the disappointments, I chuckle to myself thinking about a date-tracking app.  Date-tracker could have the same options, like “No call back”  “Rejection with encouragement,” or “Not interested this year.”  However, that report card wouldn’t be any better than my yap report card right now, so perhaps a lack of documentation is probably for the best.   

I mainly wish to combine the two searches because I feel having one egg in my basket, either the personal or professional egg, would be a lot less discouraging than looking down into an empty basket.  Perhaps I could be content seeking one if I knew I’d found the other.  I could eat one handful of jellybeans and be patient in the search for the Cadbury egg.  

I’ve been on these hunts for years, and I think the hardest part is that there were times this year when I thought I had found I was looking for.  I thought I was going to have the opportunity I’d hoped for or found someone I could classify as a “good egg.”  But offers fell though and some eggs turned out to be rotten, so I’m back where I started, only feeling a little more worn and exhausted from each setback.

Just when I thought I couldn’t take the search anymore, like I needed to start over with a new basket and lower expectations, I had a moment of inspiration.  I’ve been feeling really down lately about my struggles with the current opera I’m rehearsing.  I’m covering the lead and performing a small acting role and at times, I wished this opportunity (the best to come along in months and months) had not come my way.   However, I arrived at rehearsal today, feeling as frustrated as always with my own lack of progress, when I saw a chair had been set aside especially for me.  On pink paper, my name was on a seat in the row of principal performers.    It was pretty and pastel and it was going in my basket.  The letters said “Laura Parker,” but the label told me I was wanted, I was making progress, and the hunt had only begun. 

This trying time in my life is going to include more cracked eggs and disappointing decoys, but I will continue to put any trinket in my basket along the way to keep from feeling empty.  Friends, family, yoga, improv, and my love for New York City will be the plastic grass providing a colorful foundation for the eggs that have yet to be discovered. 

I wonder if Peter Cottontail is single…

Step in time, Step in time...

On Sunday, March 4^th, I will participate in the Climb to the Top challenge at Rockefeller Center. I will climb sixty-six flights of stairs to benefit the National MS Society.  Selfishly, I hope it will also benefit my derriere.

My training route

I have never considered myself an athlete, so taking on this challenge has ben very daunting.   I have been running the stairs in my building for months now, and lately I have been disappointed that despite my training, running up over 1,200 stairs has yet to become easy for me.  Suddenly, I’m having flashbacks of being the slow, chubby kid in gym class.  Last picked for the team, last to reach the finish line.  It’s amazing how lifelong labels can resurface and hinder reaching one’s full potential. 

I’ve always been a bit of a label-maker. Growing up, I felt I was in the shadow of my talented older brother, and I think I found some sort of comfort in the identity of the overshadowed talent.  Everyone loves to root for the underdog!  This spring, I am taking on yet another job as an understudy (in addition to performing a role of my own), and it feels almost too easy to step into this position again.  I think the line, “It’s okay, I’m next in line for the role” is starting to sound tired, especially since some are starting to regard me as a coloratura of a certain age.  Not a spring chicken in this business anymore, not my first rodeo.  I can’t help but wonder, am I the slow kid in PE and opera?

My late a bloomer label has also extended into my interest in improvisation.  Just like running stairs for a few months and wondering, “Why isn’t this easy yet?” I’ve taken a few improv classes here in New York and have been hard on myself asking, “Why aren’t I brilliant yet?”  My current musical improv class is full of experienced and gifted performers, and while I love the way it motivates me like my “Rockefeller” playlist on my Ipod, some days I feel as discouraged as when I stare up a 5k flight of stairs.   However, just as I started my journey one step at a time and now can tackle two, my peers have been encouraging me and giving me a little extra spring in my step to reach the next level. 

I can think of so many journeys that feel like Rockefeller races, challenges that seem like a boundless boot camp, be it emotionally, physically, or vocally.  My day job can feel like a winding staircase, my relationships like steep platforms, auditions like a broken escalator, anxiety that creaky step that nags me with every move.  But the reason I love climbing stairs is I can’t stay still; I either sweat my way to the top or give up and retreat to the ground floor.  I’m still worried I will stumble or be trampled in the stairwell or worse, be the last one to finish.  Nevertheless, I am inspired to know that no matter what happens Sunday morning, I will finish.   I will see the view from the top, which will last far longer than my sweaty stair sprint.  Though I may not be able to see a definitive finish line in my other pursuits, I will continue to climb, whether the journey takes sixty-six flights or sixty-six years.   My label may be slow, but my medal will read: WINNER!

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps -we must step up the stairs. -Vance Havner

View my participant page!

When Bad Things Happen to Good Singers

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. -Bob Marley

I’m sure you’ve all heard the story of triumph on the operatic stage.  You know the story, (insert opera singer here) had to overcome (insert injury or personal trauma) on the opening night of (famous opera) at (A level opera house).  In this game of operatic mad libs, the music always triumphs over the emotional or physical pain and the audience is none the wiser regarding the drama offstage.  We are taught to persevere, unless, God forbid, we have sinus drainage, acid reflux, or our period.  Then all bets are off.  So here’s the question, as singers, when do we wallow and when do we wail through it?

January is never my favorite month of the year.  The weather is grey and my inbox starts filling up with those lovely rejection letters from December auditions.  So, I’m already as low as east coast temperatures and this January, I received an additional blow.  A member of my family passed away recently and the memorial service was delayed, putting me in a two-week limbo of grieving in the city.  I will go home to California this weekend and find comfort in my family, my hometown, and my German shepherd.  I’ve felt about as strong as tissue paper and equally transparent over the past two weeks.  Little things have been setting me off, an angry client at my day job, a rude commuter on the subway, disappointment in my dating life.  I knew I wasn’t really crying about the guy who wouldn’t move to the center of the train, but I was afraid if I tapped into what was really bothering me, the flood gates would open and I would not be able to get through each day.   But how could I open my mouth without opening my soul?

I had an audition last week in the midst of my distress and I was very worried either my singing would be tight in order to keep my emotions under control or I wouldn’t be able to present myself with poise or composure because I was on the verge of tears.  Luckily, I got though it and, for better or for worse, I felt like I gave a much more genuine and vulnerable performance than in past auditions.  Before the day of the auditions, I was going back and forth questioning: you can cancel if you’re coughing, but should you cancel if you’re crazy? 

I have an even greater challenge next week, singing at my uncle’s funeral.  I hate singing family funerals because I have to remain stoic in order to get through each piece.  I can’t sing and grieve simultaneously, so I repress everything until after the performance is over.  It’s very hard on me, and I feel isolated from my family throughout the service.  However, if I have a gift I can offer my family during a time of need, I need to put my issues aside and try to bring comfort in whatever way is in my power.

As hard as it feels some days, I’ve decided to just keep singing through this difficult time.   My vibrato may shake, my eyes may well up, but my cords will stay strong and, hopefully, my spirit will as well.    Because, unfortunately, people will come in and out of my life, but music will always be with me on this journey.  

Masking the Truth

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. -Oscar Wilde

I’m always being told that in any situation as a performer, the most appealing and engaging thing I can to is “just be myself.”  I was also told that throughout my childhood, battling a shy phase that lasted from age six to sixteen.  Sure, it’s great advice, but under extreme stress, I tend to lose a sense of my true self.  Recently, I discovered the best way to tap into inner truth is by acknowledging one’s outer masks.

This past Tuesday, I attended the “dance-theatre, non-linear Macbeth mash-up horror show,” Sleep No More. Audience members donned Venetian Carnival masks as they wandered through the McKittrick Hotel, viewing pyscho-sexual dance/theatre sequences that leave one in complete shock and awe.  The anonymity of the masks not only made everything look creepier in the dark space, but I found mine freed me to feel and express any emotion or reaction without fear of judgment from those around me.  Suddenly, feelings started bubbling up, aroused by scenery, performances, and internal baggage I thought I had left with the coat check.  Roaming in a dark and foggy setting felt all too familiar, like those days when I questioned myself and a career path that could not be any less clear.  Seeing others getting lost and panicked didn’t feel very different from the way I’d felt waiting to sing at Nola a few hours earlier.  We all looked the same, we were all trying to find our way on the same journey, and we were all suppressing our doubts and fears.  The main differences between Nola and Sleep No More were that the opera singers had much more clothing than the dancers at the McKittrick and wouldn’t be dawn into murder…no matter how many times a room full of sopranos may suggest such an outcome.

While being an anonymous observer brought out some intense emotions and truths in me, I’ve also had some similar experiences as a spontaneous performer.  I am currently studying improvisation at the Magnet Theater and I’ve noticed a day spent in my head as a vocalist leads to an evening struggling to get out of my head as an improviser.  My reaction times feel slow and my deliveries feel forced because they are passing through a judgmental filter before coming out of my mouth.  Then I have to spent more time masking my “That was stupid” face, taking me even further from the scene being created.  Just like Sleep No More, though, no outside judgment is involved.  Fellow performers cheer on peers in every choice and genuinely want everyone to succeed.  As a singer, I need to remember the audition panel wants me to succeed as well.  As adversarial as this business may feel, my only real nemesis is myself.    And if I say “yes, and” to a moment of happiness in a scene and wear that particular mask, I will eventually feel it, just as I have the power to say “yes, and” to an energetic and exciting aria.  Even if I don’t feel the emotion I’m wearing, in the end, I will feel a more truthful commitment to any real emotion simply by committing to express one.

So, underneath the mask of a strong, independent New Yorker, the questions, “Am I enough” and “Where am I going” are constantly running through my head.  Instead of ignoring them or compartmentalizing my life, as I am want to do, I can accept these inner voices, embrace the inner macabre, and find my way through this foggy maze.  During audition season we will have our dark moments and we will have our days when we need to fake it til we make it.  However, no matter what we choose, committing to any emotion and breathing into it will not only bring authenticity to what we do, but perhaps ignite something in those watching us, and illuminate their own masks that shape their views.  When we face our masks, we face ourselves.