I was so excited to be a part of the cast of Lysistrata, which was a huge production featuring all the big department stars. (It was like in the old days of Hollywood, when MGM would do a movie like Grand Hotel and the entire roster of studio talent would appear in it.) I was always taking a look from outside my body and marveling that I was now one of them. A few of the women were so talented and such bright lights that I worshipped them like they were movie stars. The comedy was very pithy and smart. The music was inventive and fun. I was over the moon.
Sophomore year, I auditioned for Gypsy. The list for principal cast went up before the chorus list, and I almost didn’t check it because I was pretty sure that if I got anything it would be chorus. But there it was: my name on the principal cast list. I was gobsmacked. I was cast as Electra, one of the three strippers.
I had always loved singing, which is perhaps not surprising given how musical my parents were. Our whole family sang together almost every day, mostly Christmas carols and show tunes—Funny Girl, Man of La Mancha, The Sound of Music. In fact, we were mildly obsessed with The Sound of Music. When it was playing at the River Oaks Cinema, my mom dropped me, my sister, and the Climack girls off for the first showing of the day, and we never left our seats. We watched it over and over until she picked us up later that evening.
Gypsy would be my first time really singing a solo on stage, and although I was terrified, I proceeded to “act as if” I could do it. I also had no reason to believe anyone in their right mind would ever buy my baby-dyke self as a stripper. Obviously the director thought I could do it—he had given me the part—but I was afraid that what he saw wasn’t really there, that I had somehow fooled him. Looking back, I can see that I couldn’t give myself credit for anything, like I felt obliged to bow to the altar of my fears and trepidations. Maybe it kept the bar low, expectation-wise. But unlike my reaction to this kind of inner challenge when I walked away from The Ugly Duckling in high school, it never crossed my mind to quit.
The big show-stopping burlesque stripper number in Gypsy is called “You Gotta Have a Gimmick.” My character, Electra, had the gimmick of electricity: she “did it with a switch,” an actual electrical switch on her costume that lit her up. “I’m electrifying and I ain’t even trying!” she squealed. I worked my butt off rehearsing, and suddenly I found this full, robust chest voice I’d never had before. It felt wonderful, like massaging my soul. And even though I was über-critical of myself at this point in my life, I was flushed with victory. I’d walk through the quad with a giant inner smile, thinking, I’m in the school musical.
Unlike the other shows I’d been in, Gypsy was practically a professional production. The auditorium was state-of-the-art, and we had top-notch sets, lights, costumes, and a full stage crew. I imagined that this was what it must be like to do a show on Broadway.
MY PARENTS, TRUE TO FORM, WEREN’T TOO CONCERNED about what grades I was making in college. They were more interested in whether I was happy and making friends, and whether I needed money. (My dad would periodically mail me $20, with a note saying, “Here’s some green for the scene, teen.” He also sent $1 rebates for Ten High Whiskey to my dorm room, because you could only cash in one per address.) When I changed my major to Theater Arts, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t notice, and they didn’t. The Theater Arts Department had talent-based tuition waivers, and I auditioned and got one. My parents learned of my new major when they received the tuition bill marked “paid.” “Hey! Good for you!” Suddenly, being a theater major was pretty cool.
I loved my acting classes, and I even loved my theater history class. I actually started to get good grades because I gave a hoot about what I was learning.
One Christmas break, I was particularly excited to go back to Dolton because I wanted to show off a new skill I’d been developing. In one of my acting classes, I was learning to speak in what is called American Standard English, which has the objective of neutralizing speech to get rid of obvious regionalisms. I not only took to this process, I loved it in the way only a pedantic, overcompensating, insecure young person could. I practiced and practiced and decided I would speak American Standard English all the time. When I went home for the holidays that year, I launched right into showing off my new skills at the family Christmas party. “I had an in-ta-view lahst week,” I declared haughtily, as my sister rolled her eyes. My mom had a squinty “say what?” look, and our neighbor, impressed, said, “Gosh, Jane, you sound just like you’re from Boston!”
But sounding haughty was only the beginning. With my newfound success in the theater, I suddenly discovered—and unleashed—my inner diva. The more comfortable I got and the more empowered I began to feel, the more I tried to force my genius on others. If something in a production I was in wasn’t to my liking or up to my standards, I’d pitch a fit. I never hesitated to tell everyone exactly what they were doing wrong, in the most condescending tones possible. After someone poured their heart into a scene, I’d protest with “I didn’t believe you at all.” And for some reason I was surprised that this behavior seemed to alienate people ….
Looking back, I can see I was a repressed, judgmental adolescent who mistook my newfound adequacy as brilliance. As with most overcompensating virgins, my puffed-up ego would soon be deflated by a heavy crush.
4
Normal
IT WAS IN MY JUNIOR YEAR AT ILLINOIS STATE THAT I became mentally and emotionally consumed by a full-on crush. This was beyond the vague feeling of dread that I’d had since the Stevenson twins’ revelation. My “gay” now had a focus, and she was a petite, spritely professor with perfect handwriting. That she was straight didn’t matter. I wasn’t thinking I would ever actually win her love. And when I daydreamed about kissing her, I imagined myself as a handsome boy, so I still wasn’t entirely on board with the whole “gay” thing.
But nonetheless, the intensity of my obsession was almost overwhelming. Seeing her for class on M/W/F wasn’t enough, so I used to walk by her office just to smell the patchouli. I still hadn’t done anything about being gay, but the fantasy was awesome, and gay was getting good.
And then, suddenly, she left. She got a job somewhere else, and for the whole of that summer break home in Dolton, I couldn’t even get up in the morning. For the first time in my life, I understood what depression was. In order to get through it, I turned it into something noble, heroic almost. I even gave it a soundtrack. I was depressed to the song “Another Grey Morning” by James Taylor. I am pretty sure for him it’s a song about heroin addiction, but for me it was about the loss of a fantasy. And I grieved this loss like the death of a loved one.
Here comes another grey morning
A not so good morning after all …
Oy gevalt, the drama.
HAVING TASTED THE THRILL OF A FIRST CRUSH, I WAS primed for another. After the great summer of mourning, I returned to Normal for my senior year on the hunt for love. I found another teacher, but at least this time I picked an actual gay lady. She had spiky hair, unshaven legs, and a low, butchy voice. She didn’t rock my world, but there was enough projection on my part to get the crush going.
My initial reaction to her was shock, though. She was obviously a dyke, which made me extremely uncomfortable. But then I got to know her, and I really started to like her. She loved to party, and she loved to hang out with us undergrads, and we just thought that was so cool. Yeah, she was a professor, but she was only ten years older than we were, which at my age was just enough to make her seem wise and alluring. And she was out and proud about who she was, unlike so many of us Midwestern theater majors who were still firmly encased in our shells. Normal, Illinois, had not seen anything like her, and I found myself positively intrigued and excited. We began to flirt. She started it. But I followed. We’d sit too close, let our eyes linger too long, and brush our hands together. It was the first time I had ever flirted with anyone.
But we went back and forth with it. We’d flirt, but then one of us would pretend nothing had happened. Maybe the image of herself as a professor chasing a slightly unhinged undergrad in and out of happy hours was just too much for her. As for me, I was titillated and then terrified,