October 19, 2022

I remember the phone call like it was yesterday, although it occurred more than 35 years ago. In the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I performed in a student-directed production of the musical ‘Hair’ in Harvard Square. It had moved from our alma mater in Providence, Rhode Island beginning in June and it was my first real chance to follow my dream of acting. As a cast, we lived the ‘Hair’ experience, sharing a three-bedroom apartment in Somerville, cooking meals together, rehearsing in local parks, and doing seven shows a week. It was exhilarating, inspiring, wonderful, and exhausting every single day. 

In mid-August, the show was picked up for an autumn run by an independent and our college offered, in fact, recommended, that we take the semester off instead of combining our studies with such a rigorous performance schedule. I agreed. So, on a sunny August afternoon at a payphone on a busy street, I called my parents to tell them that I wasn’t returning to school. There was dead silence on the other end. Then my mother shrieked “WHAAAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I don’t think so.” My father simply said,…