Last week I had the honor of hosting the 1st Annual “Transformers: Rescue Bots” Holiday Party! For the first time in my life I had thrown an actual “work” party! 30 people, some of whom I met for the first time that night, mingled, laughed, hugged and got their fix of holiday sugar.
It felt like a new and lovely chapter in my life. But then I corrected myself – it’s a new layer of the onion.
Yes, onion, I say! (And, no, not trying to construct a cheesy metaphor about how we cry the more we peel back the memories!)
My new perspective developed last month when I attended a reunion of my high school drama club.
I’ve never wanted to go to an official high school reunion because I hated those years. I did not have school spirit because I felt it was akin to mindless jingoism or tribalism. The concept is antithetical to world peace when you think about it. (Now you can see why high school kids didn’t like me, either!)
But the Drama Club in high school was my refuge. Sure, there were unnecessary dramas and cruelty, but not at the cold level you’d find outside that room.
So, there I was, walking into the lovely home of Sandi Tee’s and through a 30 year worm hole! I barely made it from the front door to the kitchen without having my brain explode. Here were all these adults who still looked like the kids I hung out with saying hello! But they did look different. I was seeing them both then and now simultaneously.
The immediate reconnection with my feelings of three decades ago was a surreal experience.
DC Douglas and Nadine Benz (inset 1981).
Then, as if Zeus were trying to point out how old I was and how freakishly large my “life” onion was, it happened again.
Last night I attended Theatre of NOTE’s “A Mulholland Christmas” in Hollywood. It became a kind of mini-reunion of my theatre days from 20 years ago! Not a chapter in my life anymore, but another layer of the onion. It all comes back around in small and big ways, creating new layers.
LaMar Aguilar, Margo Romero, DC Douglas.
LaMar Aguilar and DC Douglas, 1991.
So, back to that lovely Rescue Bots holiday party. It may be the only holiday party we have since we can never know if our show will get another season until just before a new season will happen. But I won’t call this a chapter. I’m sure I’ll run into some of these folks again a decade or two down the line. And that would be lovely, since they are all such nice human beings.
Oh, and before I forget, Happy holidays!
DC Douglas, Lacey Chabert, Parvesh Cheena, Shannon McKain.
Ginny McSwain, Greg Johnson, DC, Parvesh Cheena.
Parvesh Cheena, Gregory Bonsignore, Orion Acaba, Marurice LaMarche.
Brian Hohlfeld and DC Douglas.
Parv Cheena, Ginny McSwain’s arms, DC Douglas’ disgust.
[not pictured: LeVar Burton sharing his rare Irish whiskey and poo-pooing my egg nog addiction. Jason Marsden kareoke crooning to his gorgeous kid. Absent were Elan Garfias (performing on stage like a veteran), Diamond White (showing America on X-Factor how she’s a star!) and Steve Blum (terrorizing Northern California)]
