Cancer + Performing

 I saw Wicked on my birthday.

I've seen this show 5 times. I know what happens. I know all the songs. I've seen all the special effects. There are no surprises. And yet, I cried. I cried at least 6 times. 

During the opening number, Galinda the Good Witch started singing a line I have always particularly liked the melody of: 

And goodness knows, the Wicked's lives are lonely
Goodness knows, the Wicked die alone

I swiftly felt my chest seize and my throat clench. All of a sudden my eyes were burning with tears. Then the tears were soaking my face. I was full-on silently sobbing. This happened at least 5 more times throughout the rest of the show. (Don't even get me started on Defying Gravity.)

It wasn't the lyrics that made me get so emotional. It took a moment for me to realize that it was the thought of being up on that stage, performing. Something I haven't done in nearly 3 years. 

Have I thought about getting back into auditioning? Of course. Does it give me crippling anxiety because of the pandemic that put theatre on the back burner for nearly two years plus the added bonus of having a deadly disease that has no cure and is only treated by checking yourself into a hospital every other week to have very expensive poison injected into your veins whose side effects are debilitating and cause you to vomit and sleep most of the next 48 hours.............yes.

Logically, I don't know if I will ever be able to perform regularly again. Shows usually rehearse 6 days a week, over the span of at least 3 weeks, and performances are on weekends. My chemo schedule debilitates me Friday through Sunday every other week. I could potentially move it to Wednesday through Friday, but I feel like it wouldn't make much of a difference.

I miss it so much. It's been over 3 years since I've been on stage. When people who don't know my diagnosis ask me about my acting career, I explain that I haven't performed since the pandemic started, and sometimes it's just easier to leave it at that and let them think that it's because of the pandemic, than to explain that I have cancer and that's what's keeping me from doing the thing I love doing most in the world. It hurts less to think of it that way.

I've thought about how I want to re-enter the world of performing. In a perfect world, I would put up a one-woman show. Choose the songs, rehearse them with an accompanist a few nights, then put up the show for one weekend. I'd tell my story and sing songs that got me through the whole mess. Songs that relate to what happened. Or just songs I really love or want to sing.

I'd call it something like:

One Night Only with Molly (& David)

Colostomy, Colostomy (that's pronounced Col-ah-stomy, Col-oh-stomy)

Me, Myself & David

Col(ostomy) By Your Name

Just a Girl Who Cancer No

Colontown (it's like Urinetown, but with poo)

It's My Party and I'll Poo If I Want To

Voting ends tomorrow at 7PM CT. (Standard messaging rates apply. Available only in the US and Canada.)

Most of my friends have gone back to performing. I see their posts of dressing rooms on opening night, scripts in hand on the first day of rehearsal, group photos of the entire cast and crew on closing night. Each post captioned with gratitude, excitement and love. I am so happy for all of these friends, and I know it sounds sarcastic, but it's true, I am very happy for them. But I am simultaneously so insanely jealous. But mostly happy. Please know that I am living vicariously through your posts, and you should never feel bad for me. 

I dream of the day that I take another bow. I imagine myself sobbing, waving to a standing crowd who somehow knows my situation because I selfishly wrote about it in my bio in the program, or I literally just explained all of it in my one-woman show for 90 straight minutes. The audience will be full of my closest friends and family, who came from far and wide to support my triumphant return to the theatre. Maybe even people who don't know me personally but know my story from reading about it on the internet. The ovation lasts for five minutes. They shower me with flowers and one of them hits me in the face. But I don't care. I keep waving. I'm still sobbing. Now I'm bleeding from a rose thorn to the forehead. I pretend I don't notice it. I'm still bowing. The audience is still applauding. The blood from the cut is dripping down my face now. This curtain call is now Stephen King's CARRIE and I am Sissy Spacek but if Sissy Spacek really loved having a bucket of blood dumped on her head and didn't kill everyone in the gymnasium (spoilers???). Ryan Reynolds emerges from the back of the house and gives me a bouquet of gerbera daisies (my favorite). He tells me I inspired him to get a colonoscopy and that I saved his life and he is eternally in my debt, and that he and Blake are going to name their next baby after me. My story spreads and I go viral. Lorne Michaels asks me to host SNL. I decline - I'd rather be the musical guest. He agrees and I sing a stripped version of "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X. My second number is just improv - me and a harmonica, an instrument I do not know how to play, which I attempt to sing and accompany myself on, simultaneously. I become a meme. My legacy is secure. People use GIFs of my face on Microsoft Teams for years to come. 

Just kidding.

I would never write about my cancer in my bio in the program.

Anyway. If you own a theatre and are reading this, and you're looking for a killer (no pun intended) cabaret-style show to put up at your venue, my email is mollylecaptain@gmail.com. I'm dying (pun absolutely intended) to get back on stage.