It’s the morning after I finish one of Black Box Acting’s infamous Bootcamps (the very accurate description on the website is “one weekend of sheer Meisner terror”), and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die.

I can’t stop crying, I’m alternately turned on and pissed off (actually, this is not altogether abnormal for me).

I’m struck mostly by two things:
1. My life has changed significantly since I took my first Bootcamp in 2010;
2. I absolutely suck at the Vegas line.

The latter is, to put it mildly, worrisome, since as a teacher, I am passionate about the Vegas line.

So, you’ll remember, from class, that the “Vegas line” separates the stage from the seats. In Vegas, there are no consequences for living fully, completely, and unapologetically owning your point of view (in life, of course, there are). The sanctity of Vegas relies on the actor’s professionalism: his willingness to leave the work in Vegas, and to let go of what happens up there. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Of all the tenets of Black Box, this is perhaps the one in which I believe most strongly. This is the one that lets us be brutally honest on stage, have our hearts broken, and then go have a drink with the producer and act like the normal, friendly people we would like to be. (And that, on occasion, we are.)

And so… it is of no little concern that I can’t seem to practice what I preach.

It occurs to me this morning, though, in between the bouts of vulnerability and defensiveness, that I may be making some progress on the matter.

I took a Black Box class a couple of years ago in which I did a scene where I was attracted to my scene partner. It was a pretty hot scene… Tennessee Williams, and all. I was married at the time, and pretty freaked out by the very real feelings I had for another man, while doing the work. And by the fact that these feelings didn’t exactly disappear the second I stepped off stage. In fact, they lingered. For a few months. Luckily, I kept these feelings and thoughts to myself.

A year or so later, by then an instructor, I took a Bootcamp class and had a scene with another lovely guy with whom I had to imagine that I was in love. Again, I was completely thrown by the fact that the residual effects of imagining the intimate details of a relationship didn’t automatically disappear once the class was over. But this time they disappeared after a couple of weeks (for the most part).

So, I figured, great – some day I’ll be able to let it go the same day, right? I’m on the right track. There was just one thing I hadn’t considered.

Six months later I find myself in this weekend’s Bootcamp. Here’s the difference: by this point I’d made the uncomfortable discovery that, in fact, I had to be as brave in my real life as I was in Vegas, if my work was to get any better. I couldn’t expect to be 100% honest on stage if I spent the majority of my time lying to myself about how I felt and what I wanted. In my relationships, in my career, in all aspects of my life. And the more I was willing apply some of that bravery I exercised in class to my real life, the more my real life began to change.

In her 2010 TEDx talk (Houston), the researcher Brené Brown cautioned that one cannot selectively numb feelings. When we numb discomfort, we also unintentionally numb joy. When we numb grief we also numb wonder. And when I check out, go numb, and lie in my real life, it will follow me onstage. I will be shut down.
This cuts both ways.
When I made the tough decisions in the last six months – in my real life – that allowed me to stop checking out so often, when I started to tell the truth more often than I hid or lied, the result was that I started to feel even more strongly than I thought was possible or tolerable. And this followed me on stage.

So when I found myself, in this weekend’s Bootcamp, attracted to another student on stage – a student that I’d actually taught before, no less – I was really attracted. “I wonder how much trouble I’d get into if I slept with a student” attracted.

When I found myself hurt by something another student said to me in a repetition warm-up – this time, a fellow instructor, and one of my best friends – I was really hurt. “I can’t ever look at him in the eye again” hurt.

When I was angry at another student on stage, I was really angry. “This bitch better not touch me right now” angry.

And when I stepped over the Vegas line, none of these feelings diminished. At all.

So I felt extremely guilty, and like a huge hypocrite for most of the weekend.
How the hell can I possibly be trusted to teach this technique if I can’t practice it myself? I’m a fraud.

But there’s that 10% of my brain that knows all of those feelings will diminish a tiny bit by tomorrow. And maybe this time, they’ll be gone in one week instead of three.

I am grateful to my teachers and fellow classmates at Bootcamp for giving me a safe place to practice. To practice being everything that I am – even when it’s too much. To practice investing in imaginary circumstances, and being willing to be changed on stage. To practice brutal honesty, and to practice letting myself be seen. And to practice letting go of the work when I step over that Vegas line. No matter how imperfectly.

Maybe the next time I take Bootcamp I’ll let it go the same night. In the meantime, though, I’ll be over here feeling more than I want to. And grateful that I’m no longer shut down.