Bartenders Know All The Actors

7 January 2013

Bartenders Know All the Actors

            This holiday, I spent an evening doing a Suburban Cookie Exchange across the street and chatted with a woman whose name I never caught, but who lives across the street and over from me. And up here in the burbs, I found a fellow spirit.

            What really makes a small theatre community (Denver) is not the number of actors or the small theatre companies or actors who become directors. It is bartenders. Bartenders are at the center of a theatre community and they make it seem small. Whether you are an actor or director or actor who became a director, at some point after a rehearsal or show, you went to a bar.

            You did not quietly enter the bar, shyly taking a place in the back corner. You are not a writer. You made an entrance, whether you were alone or not. Even if you were not the person bellowing like Don Quixote, you were with that guy. Blowing kisses at waitresses,shaking hands with regulars, moving tables together behind the This Section CLOSED sign. All of this is noted by the bartender. The same bartender who called you a cab last night, told you off color jokes after rehearsal, filled your coffee and honestly asked how the show was going.

            This bartender knows your drink. Your limit. Your sandwich. Your car. Your cat’s name. Your significant other. This bartender knows other actors in the show you are doing and speaks of them all as if you have all been friends since the kiddie pool. This bartender has never seen a show you were in but believes that you are The Best Actor Ever.

            This bartender has taken away your car keys. Cut you off before it’s too late. Knows you are in a tiff with That Bastard director from the last show who is badmouthing you all over the other side of the bar.

            This Bartender listens to your dreams and smiles. Nods when you say you’re quitting---“marriage, kids, maybe I’ll teach”. Of course you should teach, fulfill your soul, share your talents with students.

            The Bartender knows awards are stupid and you Do Not Act For Trophies. It’s about truth, finding truth in humanity, in moments, through inebriated conversation and slurred Shakespeare. Because you will Not Ever Stoop to playing Prostitute #1 on Criminal Minds  or Victim Number Two on CSI  or Waitress on 30 Rock  and furthermore You Will Be Damned if you breathe another monologue that begins “I remember” or “When I was a kid” or “It’s been a rough couple of days”. The Bartender smiles and refills your coffee and asks about your holiday plans.

            So one night years decades maybe eons later at a holiday cookie exchange your husband has encouraged you to attend in an effort to find you friends, you gravitate first to the other teacher. But once you’ve had a few glasses of wine, you seek out the quiet woman in the corner. She looks worried, lost, a bit frazzled. She is your new neighbor—well, “new”, if living across the street for nine months is new—and you do not know her name. But she looks nice, and she makes eye contact with you and you find a kindred spirit in this suburban wasteland and you smile.

            She wonders how she is supposed to find time to make cookies when she has two kids under the age of five and full time job. You smile---you know the drill. Yours are teenagers now, but you know. She asks how to you function? You just do. Aren’t you tired? Yes. Another drink. She asks your job. Teaching. Really? Really. What do you teach? High School, theatre. Really?!! Not that interesting, really. She smiles, her eyes drift away.

            “I used to bartend at the Wynkoop. I knew actors.”

            You grab the bottle of wine, top her off and exhale.

            Bartenders know all the actors.