Okay, let’s say you do two things:

1. You build a house.
2. You draw a picture of a dog.

And then let’s say people congratulate you on your beautiful picture of a dog. “Oh, you draw so well!” they say. Wouldn’t that upset you?

Yeah, so I’m onstage in A Chorus Line for the first five minutes. All I do is dance with everyone else and then I get cut. That’s it. Frankly, if you noticed me, you weren’t paying attention to the show.

Then I go offstage, change into all black, and become a member of stage crew. The bulk of my responsibility in this show is backstage. I’m responsible for presetting the mirror wagons before the show, collecting the hats used in “One,” setting the mirror wagons in the wings during intermission, pulling the rehearsal bags offstage when they disappear, moving one of the mirror wagons onstage in “Music and the Mirror,” striking the mirror wagons afterward so that no one trips on them, doing costume tech for “Bows,” singing into a backstage microphone for all of the chorus numbers, presetting for the next show after the audience is gone, and doing anything else that needs to be done backstage during, before, or after the show. Our stage manager is more of a mirror-turner than a stage manager, so I usually fulfill many of her duties. I problem-solve during the show.

So naturally, I really don’t take it seriously when people compliment me for doing such a “great job” as a cut dancer. Obviously they don’t know what I’m doing backstage, but frankly, I’d prefer if they didn’t even notice that I was in the show, because telling me I drew a pretty picture of a dog despite the fact that I also built a house is, well, insulting.