![](https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3239/2012/09/15221328/ShowTell1-e1347391710836-224x300.jpg)
I don’t think I can play this record anymore… Whoops.
My love affair with Barbra Joan Streisand began a few years ago, and I’m proud to report that we’re still going strong.
(Pause. Laughter from the audience.)
I only felt that I would strive to become an actor about a year before meeting Barbra, and I was still very hesitant about it all.
“I’m not good enough.”
“I don’t have enough talent.”
“I can’t dance. At all.”
“I can’t sing.”
“A tree can act better than me.”
It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times. Funny enough, I still have those same thoughts. But, luckily, they’re not as debilitating, and it’s all because of her.
My aunt’s friend is some kind of hoarder, and he has millions of old records and brik-a-brak, and he gave this to me as a Christmas present because he knew I was obsessed with Barbra. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.
I was in the middle of rehearsals for our annual drama show: Waiting For Lefty. Everything was amazing, but then disaster struck….
I couldn’t figure out my character.
He was so complex, so different, and I was lost. I couldn’t understand who this character was, or how I was supposed to become him. My drama teacher was getting visibly irritated by my follies, and I boxed myself into this mindset where I thought I’d never crack this character. It was the end of the road for me. I simply wasn’t good enough for this. Never would be.
I had come close to giving up on my Broadway dreams before, but this time I was ready to give up for good. I’d go back to “wanting to be a lawyer, or whatever.” I stopped listen to music altogether, because most of what I listened too was show tunes, or Liza, or Barbra. Then this record came into my life, and I was tempted to listen to it as some sort of dramatic farewell. But, like Cher’s Farewell Tour(s), by the time I finished listening to it, I knew I couldn’t give up. Here was this young, ambitious, loud-mouthed Brooklynite who was told over and over again that she’d never make it. She was too quirky, too ugly, or didn’t have enough talent to make it. And so, we arrive at the cliché part of the story.
I knew if Barbra could make it, then I couldn’t let her down. I put the record on my desk and made it a habit to listen to it whenever I felt like I wasn’t good enough. So when I’m out there on Broadway… waiting tables to pay the bills because I don’t have any auditions, it’ll all be because of Barbra. And I’m fine with that.