Origin Story

Before we go any further with this blog, I suppose it might be helpful if you knew the background. If you haven't already, you should start by reading the first entry of the blog. That might be helpful and it's kind of awesome. Go ahead... have a read... no no, I'll wait...

...(looking at watch)

...(looking upwards and whistling with utter boredom)

All done? Are you sure? OK!

So as I mentioned previously, I'm not an actor and I'm not a writer. Well that's not altogether true. I do have a theatrical background. I went to college for theatre. My acting career, however peaked in 11th grade when I played Sheridan Whiteside in my highschool's production of Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came To Dinner. I triumphed playing an acid tongued, wheelchair bound old queen. Big stretch. It's all my family talks about to this day.

It is true however that I've never written anything. Up until now of course. This would explain my terrible punctuation.

I do apparently have some talent. It turns out I have excellent oral skills. I tell a really funny story. For years I have been regaling friends, acquaintances and even a few strangers with stories about the subject I find most fascinating: ME! I'd tell stories about my mother, my grandmother, my friends, a horrid job and so on. These stories after so many years found themselves a little bit cemented. Soon friends were requesting for me to recount a certain incident or anecdote. I found I had an arsenal of tales that I was often being encouraged to put to use in a much more public way.

I didn't want to do stand up comedy though. I decided to challenge myself in a different way. My goal was to take all the funny stories about latin lovers, grouchy grammas and bullying bosses (you hafta see the show) and wrap them all around a central theme that is very difficult for me to talk about. Enter the AIDS.

In the end I set about crafting a monologue wherein I'd confront being HIV positive, make people laugh really fucking hard and have everyone connect and identify not just with me but with each other.

Big challenge huh? Did I rise to the occasion? You let me know starting February 13th at Urban Stages.

Love me,

Dan

You can buy tickets for MY AiDS at athandtheatre.com