I wrote here, several years ago, about running into Kerry Glamsch at a performance of Girl’s Guide to Chaos.  In that post, I remarked on how it would be interesting if he was putting on a production that involved Edward Gorey stories.

I ran into him again recently when I went to see Woman in Mind.  I mention this mainly because in a month or so I’ll be auditioning for a role in Gorey Stories, a musical based on the works of Edward Gorey.

Strange things, indeed.

It’s always interesting to talk to Kerry.  The fact of the matter is that when I was a freshman in high school he was about the coolest guy in the fucking world.  Why?  Ok, above and beyond the fact that he didn’t act like a “teacher” in any sense of the word he probably taught me more about acting in the year I was working with him than any other teacher I’ve had in my life.  Not only that, but at a VERY insecure time in our lives he treated us like people.  We weren’t just kids to him.  He made us feel like we were peers learning together.

It was an amazing time in my life, really.

He actually started to apologize for that in our conversation the other night.  He said he was just on the tail end of his “wild” years, and that he was afraid in retrospect that he was a bad influence on us.  Hopefully I helped to ease his worries on that, and I got to thank him for everything he’d done for me.

“You and Carlyn,” I said (referring to the teacher who gave me my first “major” role in high school but who also terrorized the crap out of the majority of us), “were the most influential teachers I’ve ever had.  Both for VERY different reasons.”

“Interesting,” he deadpanned.  “You know we fucked?”

After my eyes bulged out of my head he assured me he was kidding, but it was a mental image I REALLY didn’t need.

He also said one of those “simple but poignant” things that makes you step back and think about your life.  He asked me what I was doing these days, so I started to tell him about work and being in management and all that fun stuff, and he kind of shook his head and cut me off while saying “And why aren’t you acting?”

To which I kind of hemmed and hawed and made excuses, but I really don’t have a good answer to that. 

Yeah.  Looking forward to the upcoming Jobsite auditions.  I think if I pull a goose egg on getting cast again this season I need to try to find something else to do this year. 

Maybe I’ll see what Kerry is up to over at USF.

Heh.