I was at a Zoom Town Hall meeting for "Navigating the Business as a Mixed Heritage Actor" earlier this week. Yes, it was as solid-gold-depressing as it sounds.
Suffice it to say, the "professionals" who were "helping" us only narrowed the already minuscule mixed-heritage-box to nano-particles. But what I took away from it was this: I can keep creating my own box, and wait for the slowpokes to catch up.
RANT OVER.
What's been weird, but also pretty awesome, is that our YouTube "Channel" box is turning out to be a positive outlet for us. I put "channel" in quotes because, as an actor, I find it equal parts amusing and absurd that everyone can have a "channel" now. But I likes it! I LIKE OUR CHANNEL!
After years of living in the channels of industry-created boxes, it's heartening to be able to build our own box, with the lid left WIDE OPEN. And we're both floored that, in the three months since we started creating our little corner-of-happy in earnest, we've gotten over 14,000 members in our Technicolor Troop. People who couldn't care one stitch about any box.
Today's video is one of the happiest moments of my onstage life. Beautiful humans, Director Chase Brock, and Music Director Rob Berman, who both constantly strive to smash boxes to bits, wanted me for what I was as a whole. I wasn't confined to songs that "fit me" racially. I was released into whatever role fit...me. At one point, I was Mary Tyler Moore.
Here, I'm Barbra Streisand to Ana Gasteyer's (another beautiful human whose hands I was thrilled to squeeze every night) Judy Garland, in a recreation of their iconic duet. We learned this at a rollercoaster pace, and it was the best thrill ride ever. I hope it brings you some happy this week...because whatever the outcome, we're gonna need it.
Get your happy here, and leave that lid wide open, my friends. The better to let the technicolor in 💕