No Means Yes

Elaine Stritch came to speak to the UT students this week.

Yeah. Elaine Stritch. The woman from the original broadway production of "Bus Stop," the original Lady Who Lunched. I mean, wow. The woman was 81, wore short shorts and a sailor hat, milked her audience for all they were worth, did a little number for us. With an economy that age and 65 years onstage have earned her. I was smiling so hard I had tears running down my face.

She did a Q&A. Which is when Scott Kanoff asked about "Company," asked "did you know when you started it that it would change the shape of musical theater?" To which she replied "you betcha."

She told us that she lived at 79th or so at the time, that the rehearsal space for the show was down on 18th. She told us she moved down to the Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the rehearsal period. That she wanted, NEEDED "a little room with a loo, fresh clean white sheets every day, to be able to walk a block to rehearsal, and nothing, nothing, nothing else. A clean slate, no distractions." That the play demanded that, that she just KNEW she needed that in order to do the show.

I spent the rest of her Q&A fixated on the image of that clean little hotel room.

Right after her talk, I met with my collaborators on the Psyche Project. One so tired after three days of school he could hardly sit up. One about to take on what will be the role of her life, I think, after just finishing a big old musical. One scrambling to graduate in December. One about to pull an all-nighter, the first of many. One juggling two shows, a husband and a toddler. We all said "Yes, And" to trying to pull off Psyche...then pulled out our calendars. "Yes, And" instantly turned to "Crap, When?" As in, "Crap, WHEN do we have more than two hours of free time in common over the next three months." As in "Crap, WHEN is our festival proposal due?" As in "Crap, When did you say you needed my revision suggestions? When is Winter Break? When do my three other shows start rehearsing?"

Not long ago, I put up a post that celebrated the idea of saying "Yes" to what life puts in your path.

I sat there with my calendar open, trying to "rally the troops," and myself, around this project, and I thought of Elaine's hotel room. She walked away from her life, from her calendar, from her "Yes, Ands" to embrace white sheets, blank walls, one project that was worth her giving over to it.

Maybe sometimes you have to say "No" to say "Yes." Have to say "Yes, this project means something to me...it matters that I get it right, that I give it my best energy, that I come to it having slept, eaten, made my bed, kissed my lover, PREPARED myself physically, mentally, emotionally to give everything over to it, to give it my best self. And so I say 'No' to it, FOR NOW AT LEAST, because right now, I cannot do that."

The best art should require your whole self, shouldn't it? If you're not giving over to it, what ARE you doing?

All this is not to say that you shouldn't say "Yes" to everything. Just to acknowledge that "Yes" is sometimes pronounced differently.