Today my husband and I said goodbye to our best friend. It was tough. Really tough. I know it was the best thing for him. He has been our loyal friend for 19 years!

Rags, our friendly cockerpoo joined our family on New Year’s Day, 1991 when he was just three months old. His father had been a standard poodle and his mother a cocker spaniel and I think he definitely got the best from both sides of his family.

From the very beginning he was playful, smart and obedient. At that time our two youngest daughters were still in grade school and he had a knack for making each of us feel we were his all time favorite. When Abby went away to boarding school I know she was sure that Rags wouldn’t be able to live without her. When Jessica left home for college and then to live in London I know she pined for Rags as much as he did for her. Whenever my husband or I would leave town our first query in our nightly phone call was always about Rags.

I have wonderful memories of Rags that even now through my tears make me smile. He was so obsessed with balls that we would have to hide them because he wouldn’t stop bringing it to us to play catch. Many a time as I was sitting in my chair at the computer I’d feel a thump against my back only to reach down and discover he had thrown his ball at me. Playtime! As a puppy he played the standard game of fetch but in later years he developed his own game. We’d throw him the ball, and he catch it in his fancy jump in the air way, then immediately drop it. Then he’d run away from it in the opposite direction sniffing everywhere until he “found” it again, before bringing it with great fanfare.

Our youngest daughter, Jessica, taught him all kinds of games. He could count, play hide and seek and high five with the best of them. He understood English so well that she took to spelling words backwards when she didn’t want him to know what she was talking about! Abby, on the other hand, would spend long hours talking with him, telling him about her life’s plans and all the while he’d be looking in her eyes like some wise sage. Perhaps the early days were the foundation of his caring companionship that marked the relationship he and my husband had. They watched football and baseball games together, often shouting and barking in unison to cheer their favorite teams. I know they kept each other from loneliness when I was away for long intervals.

Two co-founders are listed for our company but Rags was in on the founding of US Performing Arts and probably should be listed in our About Us as one of the company’s founders. He listened as I read plans aloud, slept underneath my desk, jumped to attention every time I moved. Best of all he never criticized my failures but seemed to celebrate my victories. Over the years he’s licked many a tear and brought a smile to many frowns. He’s never complained and was the epitome of eternal youth.

Rags didn’t know anything about age. He never turned gray. His step remained quick and his jump high until we mere humans fettered him with our mortal theories of age. He’d finally had enough of our limited thinking and has moved on to an eternally limitless life. As he peacefully slipped away today, giving me one last lick, I knew he was again running through the green grass chasing after his friend Mickey. So here’s celebrating you, Rags. May you live in our hearts forever.

“She’s got the chops!” is an expression used often to describe a performer who’s really got what it takes. It usually means they’ve mastered the craft and are on their way (if not already there) to stardom. I think having chops also means being savvy about the whole package. I’ve known plenty of actors, dancers, singers and musicians who had the chops but couldn’t find the career.

So then what makes the difference. Why does one performer make it and another doesn’t? I don’t think there are any statistics that will allow you to absolutely draw a conclusion. Although I expect it will happen eventually since we live in an age that seems to quantify almost everything. I have my own conclusions and reading Elliot James blog about auditions yesterday prompted me to write this one.

For the purposes of this blog let’s talk specifically about actors but in my opinion, the specifics of the craft may be slightly different but the whole package holds true for all performers. I’ve said in many blogs that a talented actor needs to master technique. They need to become conversant with a vocabulary that speaks to their art. One that “works” for them. You go to school for that. Either a college program or a conservatory or workshops, or private coaching. It doesn’t stop when you graduate or receive a certificate or handshake. You must remain inquisitive. You probe and you continue to grow. You develop that part of you that melds technique and inspiration. Your approach becomes innately organic, honest and truthful and the “technique” melts away. Those are the givens. That’s the expectation for an accomplished actor. But there is something else that is equally important.

I said earlier that I have a hunch about what makes the difference from the point of mastery of the art and the success of a career. An actor (performer) has to believe in herself. She/he has to have the passion to succeed beyond anything else and the vision to see that success. No self-doubts can be allowed. With that comes perseverance. That’s what Elliot’s blog reminded me. You go to the auditions day after day. You book some, lose some but, as the song says, “you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again” because you can’t do anything else. It is the air you breathe and so therefore it is life-giving. It is informative. And in itself the process is invigorating.

A young woman came to work for us a few years ago. She was relocating from the east coast where she had had some success as a child actor. She had relatives in the area and we were a pit stop for her until she could get her feet on the ground. Within days of landing she was pounding the pavement in her off hours auditioning. She did fringe theater with small remuneration until she could find herself an LA apartment. She wrote, she did small independent films, she took acting class with a top coach. She booked a guest starring role on network television.  She explored her  craft…and herself. In the process she completely reinvented her package. She recognized what makes her different from every other actor. She’s a take charge person and she took control of herself. She realizes that she’s a business. A business that needs proper packaging and marketing. She’s now poised to market her uniqueness every time she enters a room. She’s edgy, she’s smart and she’s talented.

Every time I hear about a really talented actor deciding to settle for another line of work I am reminded of the story of a stone cutter on the mountain pounding away on a huge boulder attempting to split it with a sledge hammer. After days of work he finally gives up leaving the hammer and the rock sitting there. A man comes along, sees the hammer and decides to swing it. With one blow the boulder is severed in half. Think of it. Maybe your career needs only one more audition to allow you to realize your dream. Don’t you think you deserve it? Don’t you think we deserve it?

Writing about seeing “August: Osage County” last week gave me the opportunity to coalesce my thoughts about live theater. One of my questions to myself was, “If acting is acting then what makes the theater experience different than a performance on screen?”

First it begins with the written word. The text. The difference between a play and a screenplay is the number of words on the page. They both need a good story and they both develop a compliment of interesting characters. But, here’s where they begin to differ. In a play, the dramatic action of the words drives the story. The screen, and therefore the screenplay becomes a visual storytelling device. Add to that the ingredient of what happens when the action is live and you can see that the audience receives a very different performance experience.

The problem is that not enough people can or choose to see live theater. The reasons vary of course. Sometimes it’s the price of the theater tickets. Sometimes it’s not having venues where live theater is produced or presented. Sometimes it is just not having been exposed to the exhilaration of the experience.

There is an interesting move afoot that might change all of that. The Metropolitan Opera started it all several years ago through its presentation of their selected opera productions on large screens, first at Lincoln Center and then in Times Square.  Then they presented the Peabody Award winning hi-definition telecasts of operas live from the Met in selected movie theaters. It is an incredible screen experience of a live performance. Not one edited for the screen but a performance seen as it is happening. Affordable and exhilarating. Now in it’s fourth season Live from the Met promises an exciting season of broadcast feeds at a movie theater in your community. Now, no matter where you live, you can have season tickets to the Met!

The newest entry into this live experience is theater. This time you can sit in your local movie theater or art museum and see live theater direct from London. The National Theater opened its season on June 24 with its heralded production of “Phaedra.” There are three more plays to come over this season. Think of it. You can experience a great company of actors performing wonderful plays at the very moment they are happening without flying to England. Amazing concept. I’m planning on organizing a theater party. Not just locally but I intend to get my daughter and her fiance, who live in London, and several of our London staff, to join our US USPA staff at the same performance. That way we can have a company outing at the theater together! Maybe you’ll join us too. I’m hoping that next year dance companies will follow suit and we’ll be able to enjoy the performances of the world’s renowned opera, theater and dance companies as part of our yearly entertainment.

I just looked at my last post. It was written on June 9th! It talks about the time from February to June going by in a blur for most parents and school age kids. I can attest to the fact that in our company June through mid-August runs a tight second, if not first! It is amazing how much planning goes into the running of workshops that go by in a flash.

Our USPA staff spends 10 months of every year planning for two months of the most incredible workshops anyone can even imagine. And then the full time staff spends June through mid-August supporting the site team and thinking ahead to the next year. Whoosh. The summer’s gone! Do you think those Oberlin College Musical Theater students greeting each other in the picture realized how fast it would go and how soon it would be over?

This is the time of the year when the rewards are reaped. E-mail after e-mail is coming in from students who attended the workshops writing about their glorious summer experience. We even receive handwritten note cards (that’s almost a lost art) letting us know what the workshop added to their lives. It occurs to me as we share the notes among us and I look around the office that this cycle is much like the birthing process. The initial excitement of conceiving, planning and prepping gives way to the reality of the hard work and sometimes nitty-gritty toil and pain which then eases into the euphoria of the fulfillment of the “dream.”

I’ve promised my business partner, Craig, that I will do a better job blogging this year. How could I have known that all these posts were not what he considered to be a good blog? O.k. beginning tomorrow I will become a serious blogger. I hope I’ll still have readers…better yet, I hope I’ll have even more readers.

To social network or not to social network? Can that even be the question? In today’s world doesn’t everyone Facebook, have a MySpace page, Twitter, Linkdin, Plaxo and more? Almost everyone I work with does. But that brings up a number of questions that are lurking in my mind. Questions like, what is it really doing for us? Can it be a tool for personal growth? How can it help business development? When is information too much information? How public is this information stream and how does that affect intellectual property? This last question is one on which Facebook just did an about face and one that our entire industry is watching very carefully. Even prior to Facebook’s move on content ownership some filmmakers began to pull away from its use through concern over who would own their property.

Let’s examine some of my observations and concerns. I have to admit I stand aghast some days at the personal information people post on Facebook, not to even mention the amount of time they must be spending on it. It’s easy to become addicted to social networking. Actually it’s easy to begin to substitute simple two and three sentence posts for real conversation.  But isn’t that better than the two or three non-syllabic grunts you get from a teenager or spouse? At least there’s some discourse going on. Not only that some of those two and three sentences are pretty witty.

Naysayers are always interesting to me. They usually run the spectrum of criticism. I think that’s partially due to the fact that they will start with one caution and prediction and when it runs its course move on to another until history either bares them out or laughs at their absurdity. It wasn’t too long ago that we were being warned of the potential opportunity for  predators to troll the social networks. The caution was wise and the danger still persists but the social networks are for the most part responsible and alert and do a reasonable job of policing themselves. Parents have stepped up and not only warn their children about the ills of talking to strangers on the street and in the malls but also “talking” with strangers on the web. Most adults have realized the importance of practicing some caution when they social network.

Even though the word has been out for some time, many still don’t seem to care that they have allowed much of their information to be very public. There is information on Facebook pages and MySpace that only a few years ago most people would have only divulged to very intimate friends and family. Now here’s where I become a “naysayer.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Don’t people understand that admissions counselors and employers mine the social networks for information before admitting students or employing workers? Do they really want them to know what kind of underwear they’ve just purchased or how wasted they were last weekend? Do they want them to see the tagged pictures with their friends comments?

Now all of a sudden there are scientific and not so scientific studies appearing in publications. Did you know that there are some studies that show that people who spend their time social networking may live shorter lives than those who get out and have personal face-to-fact social contact? There is probably no doubt that social disengagement can affect a person’s well-being and truthfully can anyone really interact with 367 friends?

I’m what’s known as an early adopter and I am sold on the use of technology as an important tool in the advancement of all aspects of my life. But a tool is just a tool. It’s a devise for achieving a goal and I think the goal has to be firmly in mind when using the devise. I’m also a subscriber to the belief that all things should be done in moderation.