Grace The Stage

Apparently type A and type B personalities are two ends of the same yardstick. Meet type 1 and type 2: the theatre people, the ones that I have immersed myself in up to my eyes, the very definition of a stark double reality I have become accustomed to, everyone falling into their role and leaving me confusedly waiting backstage in the low red lights, being forced to listen to the provocative noises leaking out of the props closet.

Type 1: The stars. With their fancy Fifth Avenue coats and snakeskin clutches and impromptu renditions of old Broadway's greatest hits, they seem to live inside the spotlight, making home to its shadows and giving them all names. The explosive, incandescent glow that would make most people hide their eyes and suck in their stomachs only enhance their flawless complexion, their inanimate smiles. They have no need for sucking in stomachs.

Type 2: The crew. Instead of a mink coat the size of a small jaguar, something black from the North Face tossed nonchalantly over skinny jeans and a tee. Instead of snakeskin clutches, hiking backpacks chock full of coffee coupons and cough drops from years before. Instead of singing, they keep their voices (as magnificent as many are) tucked inside a pocket and only bring it out under a shower head. Why do they love the business? In school, back when the world could at least pretend life was fair, they led the school plays' red curtain from up to down each night for a week, a couple times a year. And they grew up and it dawned on the industry that they didn't believe in fur coats, and they were shoved into a pile of paperwork.

Where do I belong here? Am I, as some friends have claimed, an undiscovered type 1 with the potential to revolutionize the double standard in drama? Doubtful. Yet, am I, as I have often feared, too young to run from the impending type 2 wave over my head? Am I still locked inside the belief that I could follow the stage directions even without sturdy feet to take me? With my habitual fall audition looming, I look more like a deer in headlights than a Manhattan starlet in a spotlight. And the car isn't slowing down.