How #GamerGate Destroyed my Faith in the Media, Part I

A Google search of the term "GamerGate" yields pieces from outlets like Spiked, The Mary Sue,  and Slate, that label the movement with buzzwords such as "misogyny" and "harassment". Previously, respected news outlets such as The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and the L.A. Times, among others, have published stories and editorials, and conducted interviews centered around the "harassment" that enemies of the movement have received, framing the campaign as one driven by straight white men, frothing at the mouth with sexist hatred against women in gaming such as Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian, and Zoe Quinn.

The major problem with the vast majority of this coverage is that it's sensationalist and, frankly, false--and even though it's "just video games", the scandal has completely destroyed my already-waning trust in what seems to me now to be a very left-leaning media machine.

Incidentally, the debacle surrounding Rolling Stone magazine and their seemingly unchecked publishing of an horrific story of a gang rape at the University of Virginia provides a perfect example of and context for how the media, in order to sell a narrative (and thus, remain relevant and profitable) will jump on certain stories with little concern for the truth.

Indeed, it seems the narratives become particularly obfuscated if the alleged victims in the story are women or non-whites--and I find that stories that set out to debunk theories set forth in histrionic journalism often get little to no traction, another phenomenon familiar to those that support the #GamerGate movement. Suffice it to say, once I saw (and more importantly experienced) how voices like my own were stifled in order to slander gamers, especially MALE gamers, who have always been scapegoats for society's ills, not only did I learn some stark truths about the media we consume, but my political views shifted dramatically; among my Facebook friends, I now feel like the "right wing crazy".

But more on that later--here's a little about myself.

AN OLD SCHOOL GAMER

I received a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for my sixth birthday in 1988 (before that I was obsessed with Pac-Man on the Commodore 64). I and my friends in Hampton Roads, Virginia enjoyed classic games such as The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, River City Ransom, Double Dragon II, Mega Man 2, Ninja Gaiden, among many, many others; we'd visit each other, play games, then get bored and go outside and play. On my own, I would try my hand at games such as Final Fantasy and that shitty Ninja Turtles game (I was a boss at the underwater level that has become one of the most infamously difficult levels in games history. And later I would become a master at Battletoads, often considered one of the hardest NES games ever made).

A few years later, I was gifted with a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), which in my opinion is one of the greatest consoles in the history of home gaming. Super Mario World, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Mortal Kombat II, Super Metroid, Yoshi's Island, Star Fox, Contra III, Turtles in Time, Super Mario RPG, A Link to the Past--these are just SOME of the classic games in my SNES library; and I got a Sega Genesis soon after that, enjoying the Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage series.

Over the span of my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, I would own a Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Sony Playstation and Playstation 2, the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Gamecube, and the original Xbox. I also enjoyed great computer games such as Maniac Mansion (and its sequel Day of the Tentacle), and the Monkey Island games, along with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, not to mention the Carmen Sandiego series. I'll probably purchase a 3DS when the new model debuts here next year, and thanks to emulators I've been able to revisit classics such as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, one of most incredible games I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

Hell, I was even a little competitive in Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken 5 for a short, short time, and poured countless hours into Tekken 3, and I'm learning the basics of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo right now.

Although I haven't owned any consoles since the PS2 era, I do stay connected to games culture thanks to YouTubers posting footage of fighting game tournaments, posting Let's Plays, and posting reviews and news.

In short, I still feel VERY connected to gaming, even though I don't play as much as I used to. Unlike Anita Sarkeesian, I can speak/write with passion and specificity about video games and I don't need to lie about playing them.

CULTURAL BATTLEGROUND

#GamerGate is confusing if you haven't been following it closely, so I highly recommend checking out this website, and/or at least watching the video that set the conflict in motion (it's a copy of the original, which had over 1 million views before it was taken down by the owner of the account). The video, in particular, was made right after the scandal broke, and provides great context for the conflict that would unfold over the next several months. The allegations levied in the video may not all be factual, however the central point of contention, an intimate and undisclosed relationship between an indie game developer and a journalist who subsequently covered her game, has been verified, and thus the ostensible goal of the movement was born: addressing ethical failures in games journalism.

The movement itself is essentially a wildfire accelerated by The Streisand Effect, as game journalists and a couple of key websites (such as Reddit and 4chan) first sought to ignore the issue, then to censor discussion of the issue (found out more about that by watching this), and then, inexplicably, to disparage and dismiss gamers, the very demographic that the video game journalists should be protecting and serving.

And yet the controversy extends beyond ethics in games journalism; it exists within a larger cultural war, mainly against those mockingly called Social Justice Warriors, or SJWs, for short.  So-called SJWs tend to have their hearts in the right place, fighting for equality across a broad spectrum that of course includes gender, sexuality, and race--but their online tactics, reliance on emotions over reality, and hyper-dogmatism have turned them into one of the scourges of the internet.

In fact, if you click on the previous link, which goes to the Urban Dictionary website, you'll find the conflict encapsulated perfectly: the so-called SJWs are referred to disparagingly and accused of lacking integrity, and the response is quite typical, with blanket accusations of bigotry and hatred (often while being bigots themselves). They'll even venture as far into absurdity as comparing their comrades to Rosa Parks and other progenitors of the Civil Rights Movement in America during the 1950's, likening their escapades on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to real movements of social change that endangered the lives of many involved, and, as one may recall, actually led to the assassinations of people such as Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One last point to make is that so-called SJWs, from what I've seen, are typically left-leaning (many times VERY leftist), while one survey found that Pro-GGers cover a much broader political spectrum, and that will become relevant later. Of particular interest in the conflict is what I'm calling the Radical Feminist Wing of the SJW armada, which includes people like Ms. Sarkeesian and Ms. Quinn, and they are at the very core of the conflict.

In the next part of this blog I'll look at how these women have been portrayed in the mainstream media and how (and possibly why) only their side of the story has been presented to the public, and how the voices of gay, female, and minority gamers have been almost completely ignored in order to weave a false narrative that #GamerGate is fueled by white male "misogynerd" rage.

The Incarceration of Black Artists

The other night The Shakespeare Theatre Company (@shakespeareinDC) held a "Twitter Night", where they encouraged audience members to tweet before the show and during intermission, using the #STCnight hashtag. In a mix of curiosity, vanity, masochism and, above all and most likely, stupidity, I decided to search what people had written. And I found this tweet (the user's handle and page have been edited out):

This user, who, from what I could gather is a young Latino or Black American woman and an aspiring theatre artist, makes a cryptic tweet about the casting of a Black person as Ferdinand--neither expressing discomfort nor seeming to condone the choice. When she's urged to elaborate on her feelings, she replies with "It made me wonder more about what we're saying about race and power given two black men with speaking roles became slaves."

The Twitter exchange reminded me of an interview between Tavis Smiley, Octavia Spencer, and Viola Davis from a couple of years ago. Here's some excerpts from the transcript; the full interview can be found here. The emphasis below is mine:

TAVIS:  You both have done wonderful work and will do more wonderful work, but there’s something that sticks in my craw about celebrating Hattie McDaniel so many years ago for playing a maid. Here we are all these years later, and I want you to win, but I’m ambivalent about what you’re winning for.
...
DAVIS: ...I will say this – that very mind-set that you have and that a lot of African Americans have is absolutely destroying the Black artist. The Black artist cannot live in the place – in a revisionist place. The Black artist can only tell the truth about humanity, and humanity is messy. People are messy.
Caucasian actors know that. They understand that. They understand that when you bring a human being to life, what you want as an artist, to show all the flaws as well as the beauty.
We, as African American artists, are more concerned with image and message and not execution.
....
TAVIS: The point I’m making is that while I celebrate your accomplishment, there is, in fact, a lack of balance in this industry, and it makes me – that’s why I said ambivalent. I’m not upset with you. There’s an ambivalence here that when I see the audience just stand up and cheer and go wild when the characters that we’re celebrating here – they are real. My grandmother, Big Mama, God rest her soul, you’re playing Big Mama.
....
DAVIS: If you would come to me, if you were to come to me and say that you were ambivalence because that you felt the writing was not balanced, that you felt like with Aibileen and Minny and Mae and Constantine, that you didn’t feel that there were a lot of colors to the character, that their humanity was not explored, that you just saw just a blank, flat, unrealistic stereotype, then I would go with you...But if your criticism is that you just don’t want to see the maid or you just don’t want to see Denzel Washington in “Training Day” play the kind of rogue cop, then I have an issue with that. 
...
DAVIS: When I say “multifaceted roles,” they’re roles where I open up a script and the character goes on a journey. Where I see a balance. Where I’m not just always dignified, I know everything, I see everything. I’m just this straight-backed Black woman, friend, all-knowing, seeing, whatever.
I’m talking about a human being, multifaceted human being that actually lives, breathes, all of that, okay? ...Because my whole thing is, do I always have to be noble? 

Frankly I rarely feel fidelity, as a Black American artist, to any sort of "cause". I think that the "Burden of Representation" (where a non-white actor, or a gay actor, or a woman, or whatever, is anointed as a stand-in for that entire group) is completely unfair and ridiculous. I approach my life and my craft as a human being first, as an individual first, NOT as a Black person. I am not naive enough to believe that my blackness has no bearing whatsoever on, at the very least, the way that I'm perceived, but there comes a point when one becomes too busy being "black" and not busy enough living life.

The best I can do is create a fully-realized and compelling character, and let the work speak for itself.  THAT is how you honor the "Black Experience", THAT is how you honor Black people--you show them as multi-dimensional human beings, no matter what, and you KEEP doing it. I try to choose roles based on their complexity and story arc--and that's pretty much it. If anything traffics in negative stereotypes, I attribute that more to limitations of the writers than anything else.

If I sit here and worry about what it looks like if I'm playing a slave, or what it looks like for a black person to be kissing a white man's foot, or what it looks like for me to wear chains, then I'm dead in the water. It's unfair to me as an artist to be beholden to "What Black People Might Think". Can you imagine the cast of HBO's The Wire worrying about what black people would think of their roles and their work? It would have robbed viewers of one of the most complex and compelling television dramas ever produced.

This woman's tweets piss me of because in her zeal to preserve and uphold her highly subjective and racialized worldview, she ignores that Ferdinand is royalty and has a wonderful journey through the play; she ignores Caliban's complexity and poetry and soulfulness; she ignores the hard work that everyone is doing on stage and off (which she should be aware of, being a theatre artist herself), in fact ignores the whole sweep of Shakespeare's play. Rather than celebrate the triumph of having black artists employed at The Shakespeare Theatre Company, furthering their careers, building their resumes, and sharpening their skills, she complains.

Two of the top-rated shows on television feature Black women in the lead, and the producer of both of those hit shows is a black woman; men like Key and Peele, Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejifor, Michael B. Jordan, and David Oyelowo, and women like Shonda Rhimes, Lupita N'yongo, Uzo Aduba, Octavia Spencer and of course Ms. Davis are breaking through and getting their work out there and are CRUSHING it. We are living in a time of abundance and of unprecedented exposure for Black artists in entertainment, and yet it's STILL not enough--people still complain because to them the representations aren't "perfect". The Cosby Show "wasn't an accurate portrayal of Black life" yet Good Times trafficked in stereotypes; some people feel that Black-ish is a "coon show".

People are protesting around the country about overzealous law enforcement and what they view as an oppressive and racist regime that targets Blacks unfairly. In the realm of the arts, or at least entertainment, it seems that at least some oppression comes from other black people.

And I'm tired of it.

#BlackLivesMatter -- But Only in Certain Cases.

I've withheld comment on the situation down in Ferguson until now. I've watched the drama escalate and spiral out of control, I've watched the public outcry, I've seen the responses on social media, and I did my own digging into the matter. All I can say is that this situation and its aftermath has left me disheartened, and I'm deeply, deeply disappointed.

The reasons I feel this way will probably surprise and anger many of you.

But somebody has to say something and cut through all the frenzy because it's extremely unnerving, and even baffling, to watch an entire nation full of well-meaning, intelligent, and deeply compassionate individuals whip themselves into a frenzy without digging just a little bit deeper into the situation, and asking themselves some simple questions. They've accepted what they've been told, and allowed their emotions to govern their actions and responses. Everyone seems to want "justice", but nobody seems to care about the TRUTH.

And worst of all, many reveal themselves to be hypocritical in the extreme, and actually don't care about "Black Lives" as much as they claim.

Michael Brown suffered 9 gunshot wounds. His injuries are inconsistent with narratives that he was either trying to escape, or had his hands up in surrender. Brown was caught on camera robbing a convenience store minutes before his death, which is inconsistent with the "gentle giant" narrative that's been pushed by the media and supports the story that Wilson may have identified Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson as suspects. Brown had THC in his system, which might explain why, if Officer Wilson's story is to be believed, Brown may have been behaving irrationally by walking in the middle of the street (with stolen paraphernalia in hand) and engaging in conflict with a law enforcement official.

There is also gunpowder residue, DNA evidence, and photos of Officer Wilson's injuries that support the narrative that there was indeed a struggle inside of Wilson's car (and I don't buy that Wilson was somehow able to manhandle a 6'4", 279-pound man from the seat of his car). Lastly, in addition to witnesses that claim that Brown was surrendering, there are MANY witnesses who claim that Brown CHARGED at Wilson, "like a football player", to quote a diary entry of one of the witnesses, which is consistent with Wilson's account of the altercation. Some of those witnesses, as I understand it, are Black Americans--and, shrewdly, have kept their identities concealed out of concern for their personal safety.

Sorry to break it to you all, but according to the EVIDENCE available, Brown was NOT an innocent, gentle giant, at least not on that particular day, and Wilson doesn't seem to have a history of racist policing or dishonesty. All it takes is a few Google searches to find autopsy reports, local news reports, official documents, and witness accounts that raise huge, HUGE questions about the sensationalist media's reporting of the story.

We're quick to dismiss Fox News as a propaganda machine, but the fact is that CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, USA Today, The Huffington Post, and other outlets--publications that have the trust of a large number of the American public--are just as guilty of spinning stories and skewing narratives. And now people are protesting, businesses businesses and neighborhoods are being destroyed, people are getting hurt, because many BELIEVE what they've been told or what they've read, without questioning it.  They want to be outraged, they want justice, they want answers--facts and evidence be damned.

The irony in all this is that people keeping saying "black lives matter", and saying that our black boys need protection.  I think these statements are both true. The issue is that Black boys--and black people in general--need just as much protection, if not more, from OTHER black boys, than from racists and/or police (Chicago, anyone?). But we aren't protesting over that right now. There's a drug war that most people recognize as a complete failure and waste of resources, and Michelle Alexander argues persuasively that it is a largely RACIST Drug War; but we aren't protesting over that right now. The bi-racial, Nobel Peace Prize-winning president bombs brown people in Africa and the Middle East, but we aren't protesting over that right now, either.

No; we are protesting the death of an 18-year-old kid that got high, robbed a convenience store, and assaulted an officer; I do hate that all this happened, and it's awful that so many people's lives have been destroyed by this incident, but the evidence suggests that his own actions led to his death.  People are being arrested, getting injured, having their businesses and livelihoods destroyed, over this. These aren't the Watts riots, this isn't the aftermath of the killing of Dr. King--this is outrage manufactured by the mainstream media, and many good, good people have bought into it entirely.

I find that deeply troubling.

For Debbie.

Don't adjust your monitor, she's REALLY that foxy.

Tonight--with a beautiful, hearty portion of the NYU Grad Acting family--I had the distinct honor and pleasure of celebrating the "retirement" of the incomparable Deborah Hecht.

Most of you reading this probably know her--you've worked with her, you were (are!) one of her students, you're friends with her.  She's probably touched you in some way. I feel fortunate, because I can say that, in my relationship with Deb, all of these things are true.  Yes, I'm bragging about that. And yeah, I carry a little torch for her--and yeah, she's waaaaay out of my league.

Deb--I tend to call her Debbie, I think that suits her better--is certainly worthy of more than a mere Facebook post, but there's so much I want to express right now, and I hope to convey to everyone just how amazing this woman is, and how much I love her.

So I give you: Lessons I Learned from Deborah Hecht.

In the first half of my first year at NYU Grad Acting, Debbie teamed up with David Costabile and sat me down in Zelda Fichandler's office, and she asked me how I was getting on with my classmates. Of course, she already knew the answer: shitty. She told me many things, but what I remember most is her saying "You're a leader". And when I protested, she said "sometimes you just have to take the good things that people say about you on faith." Lesson #1.

At the end of my first year, in evaluating my work on a Shakespeare project, she bluntly said my performance reminded her of a "head and feet, with a giant, gaping hole in the middle".  I could only laugh, knowing what she meant: I hadn't personalized the work I was doing, and she straight up called me out on it. Lesson #2: Debbie knows her shit, and she don't fuck around.

In the second half of my second year at NYU, when I was a pretty much a gelatinous husk of a human being, so mired was I in my emotional turmoil, I had a Trio Evaluation, attended by Debbie alongside two other titans of The Program, Richard Feldman (I call him Dickie Feldman...I think he secretly hates it), and James Calder (whom everyone just calls Calder, and they're fucking GLAD they don't have to take his class anymore).  At one point Deb, likely unfazed by my hyper-emotional state, asked a simple question that cut right through me:

She said "Do you have trouble owning the things that are good about you?" Of course I could only affirm that that was indeed the case. She then said "You need to learn how to be your own best friend." When I protested, she said "No, I don't mean being self-sufficient; you've got to learn how to be your own best friend." Lesson #3. And you KNOW she's right.

When I was just out of school, back when the recession was nice and fresh, and I couldn't buy a job, and I wasn't auditioning and I didn't have any money and I'd just been dumped and I didn't have a phone and even McDonald's wouldn't hire me and I had nothing and I felt as though I was nothing--I did this little shitty cabaret set that turned out to be a bit of a scam, and among the peers that showed up, Debbie was there.  And she stuck around even after those terrible, terrible "singers" stunk up the joint before I did my set.

That's not really a lesson, more of a warm memory.

In fact, there are a lot of those--Debbie crying after our Games Project in First Year; Debbie crying after seeing my solo show; Debbie advising me to drop my middle name in billing, because Clifton Duncan sounds more like a star's name; Debbie coming to "Good Person of Szechwan" and offering me encouragement during what was a difficult time for me.

Debbie was our vocal coach for "Kung Fu" at Signature this past winter, and she helped me develop, and have faith in, a good 4 or 5 vastly different characters, ranging from a fey, nasally Chinese guy to the laconic and bass-heavy James Coburn. We probably did about 30 minutes of work in the 2 hours or so we had together--the rest of the time we laughed and talked about history and politics.

I used to call Debbie my second mother. I'm a bit less needy now--thank god, that's a lot of pressure to put on somebody--so now I feel honored that I can call her my friend. Sure, it means that I'll probably only see her maybe once a year--twice if I'm working--but I can't be disappointed, because I know, and I'm especially aware after tonight--that she's living a life that is so rich and so full, and she's creating a professional legacy that is so incredible, that you kind of have to be content with just sitting back and waiting for her to pencil you in.

And when you meet up with her, and just kick back over drinks, marveling at how youthful she is, tickled by her girlish giggle, and how she never has the same hairdo twice, and then two or three hours vanish--it's always worth the wait.

Debbie--you've always believed in me, and you've always been there, even when you weren't. I'm so privileged to know you, and so impressed and so proud that there are so many people that love you so much and so unabashedly.

Now let's get together for lunch. How does November sound?

Much love,
~Clifton Duncan (no Alphonzo).

"Kung-Fu" at Signature Theatre: A Post-Mortem Pt. 2

Please see Part One here.  I dare you.

...

So.

I was in my dressing room one night in late October, wondering how on earth I ended up at the Public Theatre doing a Brecht play.  Meanwhile, I was in hot contention for the Broadway revival of Les Miserables. (The classic actor joke is "it's between me and the guy who's gonna get it". The other guy got it. And that, in a nutshell, has been the story of my 2013.  Twenty-Thirteen will go down as The Year of The Other Guy Getting the Big Job.  That's just how it goes sometimes. Fuck.)

During this existential pseudo-crisis I did what most young'uns do these days when life becomes too strange and unbearable to cope with: I checked my smart phone.  I mean it had been like 113 seconds since I last checked it.  I was dying.

Lo and behold, there's this offer for Kung Fu sitting in my inbox, for the role of "James Coburn".  No, I didn't audition again--mofos was just like "yo, here's a job".

Honestly, I didn't even know who Jimmy Coburn was. Real talk.

Onward.

So, two days after my time as an attractive and animate prop at The Public ended, I was in a small studio, sweating profusely under the glare of Sonya Tayeh, who I'm sure wondered the same thing that I did: what the hell is this guy doing in a show that requires DANCERS???  To make matters worse, I easily stood at about 4 to 6 inches taller than anyone else that would ever be on stage with me in this show, EVER.  Add to that my horrible inflexibility and diminished agility, from previous injuries as well as doing too much weight-lifting and having too much mass, and it was pretty much pre-ordained that I'd be placed at or near the very back in every single dance sequence I was involved in.  There was just no getting around my Big-Slowiness.  It was a force to be reckoned with.

More real talk, I was also bitter as hell that I had to have three days of intense PRE-rehearsals in early December before we started rehearsals proper in January.  I was tired and drained, it was cold as hell outside (though the worst was yet to come...I need to move out west), and I figured I had almost 4 weeks to whip myself into something resembling an agile, fit, fighting machine, but NOPE!!!!  Just spent hours and hours watching fuckin' incredible 5'7" ACROBATS do a bunch of crazy shit and then have to somehow repeat whatever the fuck they just did.  

Yeah. I was pissed.  I mean I was stoked to be working on the show--and I'd dreamed about the possibility of going from one high-profile gig to another...but...yo...a negro was TIRED.

I will say that since I live with two gorgeous and extraordinary dancers, and watching them in varying degrees of physical pain, I've learned to not complain when dealing with fatigue and bodily stress.  Dancers are warriors, man.  Nothing but respect for them.

Anyways...I managed to make it through those three days of feeling like a loser because it took me forever to learn the choreography and even when I learned it it didn't look too hot wonderfully challenging pre-rehearsal.  Sonya and I exchanged about a sentence apiece over that time.  I think it was when we greeted each other on the first day.  When I was late.  Fuck.

I still didn't know why Leigh offered me this job.  Much later on, I'd find my stride, but it took a long damn time.  And as I said...Leigh is very, very smart.  Maybe a LITTLE smarter than myself.

Rehearsals proper would begin in the new year, which at this point was several weeks away.  I had no idea how I'd make it through the whole process.

Next: Rehearsals, Or The Story of How Sonya Tayeh Learned to Tolerate My Inability to Do Most of What She Asked of Me

"Kung Fu" at Signature Theatre--A Postmortem, PT. 1

KUNG FU, written by David Henry Hwang, received its world premiere at New York's Signature Theatre Company in the winter of 2014, opening on February 24, and closing on April 6. It was directed by Leigh Silverman, with fight choreography by Emmanuel Brown, Chinese Opera choreography by Jamie Guan, and dance choreography by Sonya Tayeh. The cast featured Emmanuel Brown, Bradley Fong, Cole Horibe, Francis Jue, Peter Kim, Ari Loeb, Reed Luplau, Kristin Oei, Jon Rua, Phoebe Strole,  Christopher Vo, and myself.

In summary, it is a piece concerning the internal and external struggles of the iconic Bruce Lee on his way to stardom and inner peace, using language, and movement.

I worked with an actor who once said "I'm a mover, not a dancer; when the dancing starts, I move the hell outta the way!"

There's no interesting beginning to this story; I got involved with this project because I auditioned for it and, for some reason, was hired. I'm not a dancer, not a martial artist, but I am a fucking highly-trained, solid actor and have a lot of stage combat experience.

I took Shotokan Karate briefly as a senior in high school, inspired by Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter (when I was a ten-year-old, waiting for Mom to come home in our small apartment on a military base in Belgium, I would scream "SONIC BOOM!" at the top of my lungs and clap my hands together, hoping some kind of vaguely sperm-shaped, revolving projectile would fly out of my arms. I also tried using the Force after I saw the Star Wars trilogy, around that same time, because I'm awesome). I took a few Karate classes as a kid, too. That, my friends, is the extent of my martial arts training.

My dance background is being a black kid steeped in American pop culture in the 80's and 90's. Michael and Janet Jackson, Bel Biv Devoe, The Fly Girls, MC Hammer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. You know you loved that Vanilla Ice cameo in that joint. Don't lie.

Surely this would qualify me to share the stage with experienced acrobats, martial arts exponents, gymnasts, and Juilliard-trained dancers, right?

I guess Leigh Silverman thought so...bless her heart.

Anyway, back in early 2013 the piece was very, VERY different, and I auditioned for a WORKSHOP in a track that would become radically altered in later drafts of the play. I went in, did my read, and I was pretty funny. Then I heard nothing for like 2 weeks. Then there was a movement call. It was one of those things where there were a bunch of Asian men, a bunch of Asian woman, a bunch of white girls, and then like 4 black dudes--there was NO question as to what role we were up for.

Movement calls tend to be the bane of my existence, so I focused intensely and spoke to no one, even my one friend that was there (yeah...it was one of the black dudes. His name is Clifton, too. He's pretty awesome--in fact, he's playing the lead in the Motown tour right now). There was some martial arts/dance choreo, and a fight sequence. I remember feeling pretty good about what I did. So, yeah, it made perfect sense that I heard nothing for a month after that.

(Breif note: in that call I saw why this thing must have been a BITCH to cast. Lots of dancers in NYC, but can they fight aggressively and convincingly? Lots of people with stage combat training in NYC, but can they handle dance choreography? And can any of these people do these things AND say words at the same time AND etch out multiple characters that seem like reasonable facsimiles of human beings??? Holy crap.)

Eventually I got an email saying I got an offer. Of course, being the depressive I am, my first thought was "I wonder who dropped out at the last minute so that I could do this???" Actors. Ugh.

I should note that I fought pretty hard to stay in contention for this workshop; other projects that may potentially have conflicted, I either turned down or didn't audition for--I knew it was important to be on the "ground floor" of something like Kung Fu, because people who do workshops tend to get used in later iterations--if their work is banging. Actually, sometimes they DON'T get used again, no matter what. Anyway, I kept a laser-focus on this project, even not knowing that much about it.

Bruce-Fucking-LEEEEEEEEEEEEE, Son!

I was not prepared for Cole Horibe.

I mean what the hell. This guy was on So You Think You Can Dance and then magically wound up here. How on earth does a person like this exist, who has extensive martial arts AND dance training, and who has always wanted to be an actor?? David Henry Hwang wrote this play right at the time Cole is in his physical prime. You couldn't ask for better circumstances. Is he lucky? Of course he is. But he's also been training for like almost a quarter-century. I think the time had come.

The initial two-week workshop at Signature Theatre in the Spring of 2013 was a blast. I got to do a lot of fighting, and just a little bit of goofing off (when the play opened almost a year later, I got to do a little bit of fighting and whole lot of goofing off).

Almost immediately in the room, I felt an atmosphere receptive to the energy and work I brought into it, which was a refreshing shift from what I was used to. It was an amiable group of people, down for just about whatever; the fight and dance sequences were awesome, and I was happy just to WATCH some of them (dem Kato sequences...gat damn!). We performed a heavily-abridged version of that draft as a presentation, but I think the important thing was getting an idea of what was possible physically; that workshop began to give a rough definition of just how the hell a play about Bruce Lee--a man who was a kinesthetic genius--could work in a space with live performers doing it. I'd say it was a success, and I was noticeably happy to be there.

Then a few weeks later I got an email from Leigh that there was to be another workshop and that Emmanuel Brown, our fight guy, would be doing my track (I should note here that he's a black dude...we be takin' each others' jobs). I was disappointed, but didn't take it to heart because I knew they wanted a better "mover" than myself for that role--a character based on a guy named Jesse Glover, one of Bruce's first students in Seattle, who apparently could kick ass. But I appreciated Leigh's gesture--she's a savvy mama.

I told her that I couldn't wait to see the production; because I figured I'd run my course with the project. Oh well...onto something else.

However, Leigh is smarter than I am (...just a little bit, though)--and I was wrong.

NEXT: How I Found Myself in the Company of Dancers; or How I Was Hired to Play a Couple Chinese Dudes, a Black Dude, and a Famous White Dude