PERSEVERANCE IS LIKE A PENCIL

Recently I traveled to New York for a weekend of theatre.  Typically when I head to New York, I check the equity casting calls.  This time around, I noticed an open dancer call for the 2016 CATS musical.  I also noticed that a former dancer colleague, Andy Blankenbeuhler, was choreographing - hot off the successful heels of HAMILTON.

When I met Andy at Southern Methodist University, he was an 18 year-old tapping phenom.  We danced in a couple of shows together, but at the end of the year, he made the decision not to continue on the university path. Instead, he left to pursue a career on Broadway.   There was no doubt in my mind that he would do well.  He was a talented male dancer and good male dancers are always in demand.   Flash forward 20+ years, he is now the "it" choreographer on Broadway.  It is important to remember Andy did not become the "it" choreographer overnight nor did he dance on Broadway the minute he arrived.  Judging from his credits, it took him about four years to land his first Broadway dancing role and approximately 14 years later he attained his first Broadway bound choreography gig.   This made me think about perseverance and its importance.

Perseverance is the ability and drive to start and continue steadfastly on the path toward a set goal. Perseverance is a personal trait of hard work and determination and involves tenacity and resolve. It is the ability to keep pushing, trying, and moving beyond your failures, setbacks, or discouragements.

Throughout my life, I have always had the drive to perform and despite some setbacks or forks in the road of life (parents insisting I finish college instead of accepting a part in the German production of CATS, making the choice to leave a sprouting L.A. acting career to care for a terminally ill parent, attending grad school-twice, accepting a marriage proposal, moving to a small southern town, becoming a mom), I still find myself going back to the dream and goal of performing.  At this point in my life, I feel lucky because I am living in a creative town where independent and studio TV series and films are made. Things may not happen as fast or on as big of a scale as they might if I were in L.A. or NYC, but I will persevere and I continue to pursue my love of performing and creating.

Learning from my past creative colleagues and friends who are now writing or acting on network TV, and those who are performing, directing, choreographing, and conducting on Broadway, I know things take time, talent, connections and most of all perseverance.  

Perseverance is the foundation of anything you can imagine and creating a path to attain it.  Like me, you may not always be lead down the path you have planned and you may have failures. But I liken perseverance to a pencil.  Perseverance and pencils are tools to draw legible lines/maps toward your goals and dreams, but they also allow you to make errors - erase, restart, edit, rewrite and continue.  

How are you persevering?