Most days, I look back and laugh; just like we told ourselves we would.

Woke up this morning with a sore throat.

And by, "this morning" I mean, "Eight PM."

I croaked out an ironic, "Good morning" to my favorite wife, and immediately got caught up in the movie version of SLEUTH, starring Olivier and Caine.

Great flick.  Based upon a great play.

I had enormous fun back in the 80's, playing the Olivier character at a little theatre in Iowa.  It's a two hander, very complex plot.....lots of lovely twists and turns.  Great ending.

It was my first real success as a professional.  I never really had a bad review as a professional, but the one from SLEUTH at that little theatre on the banks of the river in Iowa was kept until the paper turned yellow.

And I think I've talked about stories from that production.....my favorite being the night that too much black powder was placed behind the door of the safe, to help the effect of it being blown open.  And it blew open.  It blew off its hinges and flew over our heads.

Two guys, simultaneously shouting, "JESUS CHRIST!"  In perfect Standard British dialect.

As most of you know, there is a test of your equipment when you leave the womb of the educational theatre and head out into the professional; you work your way up, doing non-speaking roles, carrying rifles in the outdoor heat, and getting killed by Indians or white guys every other scene.  You set tables at dinner theatres and build sets and paint floors and in some cases, help to reupholster the seats. 

And when you get to the moment when you're carrying a show, you get to see if all the stuff that well meaning professors stuffed into your head, and all that stuff that you read that was written by the Legends of technique and method, and all the things you saw and observed and critiqued and occasionally stood in awe of, have made any difference at all in your work.

Or if you have any work of your own to begin with.

Because at the bottom of the list is the final analysis:  Can you hold the audience?  Can you move the play?  Can you get them to suspend their belief in what's real, and buy into your reality? 

Can you work?

And with that play, in that small theatre along the banks of a mighty river in a little town in Iowa in the middle of the Reagan years, I learned that (sonavabitch!) I could.

So.  I have a sore throat.  And I have a voice that sounds like it was treated to being dragged six miles behind the back of a car along broken glass.  And I have this small smile on my face.

Because I could work.  I have a really yellow piece of paper that proves it.