Leaving New York: Post #4
This is the entry that I’ve been putting off writing,
because writing it means that I actually have to say goodbye to New York.
I am sitting in the lobby of my beautiful theatre, on a
gorgeous autumnal day in Ithaca, and I couldn’t be happier to be here. A few weeks ago, Rafa and I (with the help of
two strapping young men) packed up a U-Haul, drove to Ithaca, and unpacked in
the beautiful house that I will move into shortly, once the renovations are
complete. Nota bene: We kept the NYC place because:
1)
Rafa will
still be living there (and I plan on being back there plenty)
And
2) Nobody ever said, “I gave up my rent-stabilized
2BR in NYC and golly gee that was a great idea!”
We’re able to do this, if you’re curious, by converting my
office into a bedroom and taking in a roommate.
Did I mention how grateful I am to my spouse, who at this point in his
life has accepted that he’ll be living with a roommate because his husband has
dreams to run a theatre somewhere?
What I’m saying is: I still have my home in NYC. I have
moved to one of the most beautiful places in the country and the world. And yet still, the decision to leave New York
was the hardest thing about taking this job.
After weeks of deliberation (and many therapy sessions), I think I know
why. I’ll tell you a little story about
language and Mexico to make my point.
 |
| Mexico City |
If you grow up in Mexico City[1],
you refer to yourself as chilango,
which literally means “belonging to Mexico City.” But for our purposes, we can think of the
term as the kind of pride New Yorkers take in calling themselves New
Yorkers. If you’re a chilango, however, there’s a word you
use for everyone who wasn’t born in Mexico City. That word is provinciano. I believe that those Mexicans not from Mexico
City feel some resentment about the phrase, and really, who can blame
them? It would be like if New Yorkers
called everyone else in the USA provincial. I said called, not thought of.
But this little story illustrates
my greatest fear in leaving New York.
For all the horror of living in New York: the ridiculous rent,
overpriced restaurants, sweltering heat, numbing winters, the bombardment of
cruelty you can experience in the ten-minute walk from your apartment to the
subway, the feeling like you have to be making a seven-figure salary to not
feel worthless, the horrible traffic that makes leaving almost as difficult as
getting back in, the cacophony of light and sound that is its own perpetual
bombardment; the Faustian bargain you make is that you get to have access to
the best of everything.
Now, I know all you non-New
Yorkers may balk at this summation.
“Chicago’s improv scene is as good if not better,” I hear you
saying. “What about the restaurants of
Los Angeles?” “The museums of D.C.?”
“The seafood of Boston?”
And of course you’re right – all
of those cities excel in those areas.
But New York excels in all of them.
Every single one. There’s no
other city in this country (or the world?) where you can go to a world-class
seafood restaurant, museum and play every night of the year without having to
repeat. Or do anything else for that
matter.
Not only that, but I am living
proof that you can live in New York on an artist’s income (read: hovering
around the poverty line) and still experience all of those things. And not just in the theatre world. I have enjoyed the Metropolitan Opera from
twentieth row center seats. A few
times. I have watched a Mets Opener from
the owner’s box and watched Jeter’s last game (which I swear was rigged) from a
private box, with catering. I got into
the Freedom Tower before it was open to the public. When I was in New York last weekend I went to
see two plays. Mayor de Blasio was at
one. Lena Dunham was at the other. My tuxedo, which I bought when I was 15 to
attend some high school proms and still fits, got used regularly during my 19
years in New York. It brushed elbows
with, well, I hate to name drop, but let’s start with Meryl Streep and Jude
Law. I have attended countless Broadway
openings and restaurant openings and gallery openings. All for free.
But where this matters most to me
is art, specifically theatre. I’m not
saying the theatre in New York is better than anywhere else. I’m saying it’s better than everywhere
else. Just because there’s so much more
of it. And I can hear my friend John
Iacovelli insisting that LA produces more plays than New York does. But even if that’s true, who ever heard of
flying to LA for the weekend to catch a few plays?
 |
| I heart NY. |
In my 19 years in New York I saw
thousands of plays. So even if they’re
as good as theatre other places, seeing so many more of them means I have spent
more hours of my life watching inspirational theatre than a non-New Yorker
has. And so much of what I make, I
realize, is inspired by that work.
Seeing the best theatre in the world, all the time, inspired me. It showed me the work that I wanted to be
making, both in terms of quality and aesthetic.
I suppose if I were a different artist I wouldn’t need that to make the
best work I can. But I’m not. I’m the kind of artist who thrives through
exposure. And so, my fear in leaving New
York, is that I will become provincial.
Truth be told, I’m not sure if I
would’ve been able to do it even five years ago. But most of my friends have had kids now, or
moved to New Jersey, or had kids and
moved to New Jersey, and with the exception of my buddies on the soccer team
and the wonderful Upstart Creatures (which will solider on with Suzanne Agins
assuming Co-Artistic Directorship with me) I don’t really have a community to
hang out with.
And honestly, New York isn’t the
city it was when I moved there almost exactly 19 years ago. It’s hard to be objective about how it’s
changed, because of course, I’ve changed too, and when both the object and the
viewer are in states of transition, you never really know what is an empirical
change and what is perspective. At the
least, I know that every time one of my favorite places closes and is replaced
by a bank, pharmacy or waxing salon, a part of my heart dies. At the most, I know that going up 9th
Avenue and seeing all the stores that are no longer there, like photographs
that have been over-developed, is its own kind of trauma.
I’m planning on coming back to New
York a lot. For Upstart events. For plays. For weddings. But writing this as the sun sets over Cayuga
Lake, I’m also looking forward to my years in Ithaca. Especially because the more my artistic
vision for the theatre takes shape, the more excited I am about it…
[1] No
one in Mexico actually calls Mexico City “Mexico City.” They all call it “DF,” for Distrito
Federal. This was the case until January
2016, when its denizens voted for the city to become its own state (but because
it’s also the capital of the country, it can’t be an entire state, so now it’s
something in between and Rafael isn’t happy about it).
