Inside Minh

My start in theatre was like most things of my youth -- embarassing, risky and foolish. But one could argue that those are also the ingredients for success in the creative and performing arts. Like most theatre freaks, I started in high school. I had started making movies at the age of 12 - not home movies, mind you -- the kind where you document family get-togethers and birthday parties -- but full-on action flicks involving guns, explosions and motorbikes that in the pre-Final Cut Pro days were edited down using two VCR's, a boombox and several sets of coaxial cables. And I somehow had the precocious notion that to direct actors, one needed to know how to act in the first place.

Theatre One was what you remember it to be: a motley crew of misfits, loners, prima donnas, jocks who didn't know any better, hippies and tools who were looking for an easy A. At the helm of this ship was the quintessential drama teacher, Miss B. She wore dreamcatcher earrings, chain smoked and had a big silver ring on her finger that you could scoop ice cream with. And she had the personality to go with the garb. But damn, if she didn't understand how to mold young impressionable minds and help them realize their creative potential. And with such ease and a genuine sense that she not only understood you, but cared about you. Nobody -- not even my parents -- could coax me to deliver on that potential.

Given this spiritual awakening, I thought it only natural to audition for the fall one-act festival. The previous year, my high school had won the state-wide competition and was therefore invited to present a showcase production for the current festival. The requirements for the audition were simple -- pitch a concept for the one-act and perform a two-minute monologue. Nevermind that I had nothing prepared and didn't know what a monologue was (laugh all you want, but I was only a month into my freshman year) -- I strode into that blackbox theatre, proud and ready... until I surveyed the room and noticed that the people in there weren't the same people from my class. Nobody had yet warned me that the one-acts were haven to veteran theatre freaks -- the upper-classmen who grew facial hair, wore overalls, rode mopeds, smoked pot and played acoustic guitar in the parking lot. But it was too late. I was already in the room and they already saw me come in. The only thing worse than my invasion of their secret club was to back out of it, tail between my legs. So I sat down and calmly awaited my turn to take the stage. Yes -- it was a practice in Miss B's theatre program to audition before your peers. Looking back at this, I am still searching for the pedagogical reasoning for such public scrutiny and humiliation.

After watching most of the room audition -- and damn, some of them were remarkably good -- I had run out of seniors and juniors to hide behind. Miss B invited me to take the stage and I did. I couldn't feel anything. All senses going. Even in that small blackbox, the lights could still blind you. And you knew the entire time that in the blackness -- the jury was staring at you, waiting for you to crash and burn.

"So... so... um... my idea... my idea for the play... is about... this Vietnamese kid. His name is Minh and... he has no friends... and..."

The silence was deafening. There was no stopping now.

"The whole thing takes place in his head... how he's always made fun of... we see his perspective... and... there's this one person who finally gets him... and then he finally makes friends and finds his... you know, family... not really his family cause he's got his parents... but you know... and yeah, that's my idea."

A beat. They were waiting for my monologue.

"My monologue... um... my monologue is the Pledge of Allegiance."

And no joke, I put my right hand to my heart and annunciated every word of the Pledge with conviction and pride sans an ounce of irony. At the end, a long beat followed. Then the room broke out in loud, but polite applause as if to say, "Kudos for the effort." I picked up my bag and left the room, avoiding any eye contact.

Needless to say, I didn't make the cast. The folks that did had the opportunity to write their own one-act and from all accounts, it was a beautiful showcase. But the event didn't scar me. I continued on with Theatre One and soaked up everything B spooned me. And the following year, I stepped up on the stage and tried out again -- telling three stories in rapid-fire succession, leaving the room in stitches and me sweating (hey, fat kids sweat bucketloads in seconds flat). Not only did I make the cast, but it was another cast-authored show. I wrote a monologue about my father and how he got shot as a student in Vietnam.

The festival was held in a hotel and after the performance, I was riding the elevator back to my room. Riding in the elevator with me were two girls about my age and they kept staring at me. After a couple of whispered exchanges between the two of them, they said, "You performed with Woodson High School, right?" I nodded, bracing myself for whatever ridicule was in store. "You made us cry."

The show went on to take second place that year and I received an All-Star Cast Award. Not too shabby for a fat kid who bombed his first audition. That first time around, I had pitched an idea about a lost and lonely kid. I was lucky. It only took a year to find my family.