25: My Quarter Life Crisis

Here's a funny thing that happens when you graduate college and become an alumni, especially when you are living in New York City: You suddenly become a repository of advice.

I just turned 25 in May. And along with a promotion at work (I'm now an assistant editor, which means I am qualified to edit other people!)--and renewing an apartment lease for the first time (which meant I bought a bed frame and will finally be decorating my apartment), and traveling for work (which will never not be awesome)--here are some things that I've learned in my 25 years of life, and two years post-college as a working professional. These are stemmed from my experience as a writer, for other young writers trying to make this crazy thing called life (and love!) work.

I'm writing this blog post from my hotel room in Dallas. Because I am an adult now, and with adult work comes adult business/reporting trips. And while I have learned these things, I don't always follow them, so this is a good reminder for me as well when I'm feeling useless and hack-like.

Because 4,000 Words Wasn't Enough

"Speakeasy Dollhouse" the play, the only time you can ever
witness a murder live and in close up be kind of happy about it

So it's been a busy month for me, which explains why I have been negligent on this blog.

Besides the fact that I turned 25 earlier this month (drinks for everyone!), I also did a bit of freelancing and a giant amount of research for two articles I'm writing for the July/August issue of "American Theatre." One article required me to visit the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (hey guys!). And the other had me write 3,000 (which then turned into 4,000) words and go undercover (fancy!) as an actor for "Speakeasy Dollhouse," an immersive and interactive theatre experience set in a speakeasy bar in the 1930s. It also required me to spend an inordinate amount of time on YouTube looking for 1930's make-up and hair tutorials. Of anybody needs help with their wave curls, I can do them now!

I go into it in more detail about my acting "debut" in the "American Theatre" article. Let's just say I was required to talk to the audience and do some sketching of the murderer pictured above. Here's what I drew in 10 minutes. My roommate said I was a "natural" at acting, I'm glad I went into a more invisible profession.

So That Freelancing Thing

Jose Llana, credit: Joan Marcus

So the thing I've been trying to do ever since I got to New York City, besides get a job, was do some freelancing. And then I got a job and realized that while I loved writing, I also loved drinking, and going out to dinner, and taking long walks. So there went the freelancing idea...until now!

Hello world! Diep is here and she takes assignments! And she is not monogamous to "American Theatre" magazine.

Why just last week, "Time Out New York" ran a story I wrote about Filipino-American Broadway-leading man Jose Llana, who I was first introduced to via the "Flower Drum Song" 2002 cast album (my reaction back then was something like, "Who is this hot-sounding Asian-American man? And where has he been all my life?). Well in real life, Jose has a boyfriend and he is also my co-worker's cousin. I did not know that when I pitched the story.

But here is the link to the story, about Jose and his work in "Here Lies Love," a new David Byrne and Fat Boy Slim musical about former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos, currently at the Public Theater. And if you have not bought tickets, you should, the music is super catchy and the performances are electric. The whole thing is set in a disco nightclub (da club) and it's like I time-traveled back to 1975 and Studio 54, where David Byrne dressed all in white and was on the dance floor bopping his head to the beat. I may have done some (a lot) dancing.

Here's an important snippet of the chat between me and Jose that I could not fit into the article:

I’m getting old enough now, I’m 36, where I’m beginning to work [chuckles] with younger Asian guys who were in grade school when I was in "The King and I." For them to say to me, "When I fell in love with theater, you were the only Asian-American man  I could look up to who was not from the '50s." When I think of all my heroes growing up as a musical theater geek, they were Caucasian or African-American. There weren’t many prominent Asian-American musical theater stars. If I can be that person to a young Asian kid who thinks, "If there are roles for Lea Salonga and Jose Llana and Telly Leung and Paolo Montalban, maybe I can do it too." For a young kid to see someone who looks like them, doing what they want to do, it's really really important. I used to shy away from that but I really own it now.

Isn't he someone who you just want to hang out with? Not many people realize the importance of seeing yourself reflected on the stage, so it's so refreshing to hear a theater artist acknowledge that. And mini-soapbox over.

Here's some more links for things I've done lately:

I created a video for "American Theatre"
AT also launched a new podcast series, which I also edited. Two episodes are up. I conducted the third episode, which should be up next week, in case anyone is wondering what my wonderfully soothing voice sounds like (oh if I could sound like Terry Gross).
I created a tumblr for arts journalists, because I love the fact that gifs are back in fashion. I also take submissions! What Should We Call Arts Journalists?

And I'm in the middle of writing two pieces. 2013 is going marvelously.

The Future of Theater Criticism and Me Playing Devil's Advocate

This image has no relation to theater. I just wanted to use it.

So this past week was an eventful one. "American Theatre" finally launch our podcast series (the idea sparked by yours truly and edited by me as well). Howlround ran a very well-written series of essays about theater criticism, curated by my colleage Rob Weinert-Kendt. Roger Ebert died (though not before filing his very last review, proving that right up to the end, your movie sucked). And "Back Stage," the august trade publication for actors, got rid of its film and theater reviews.

And the Internet (or at least my tiny corner) fell apart. Or rather, regarding "Back Stage," there were comments like this, this and this. And many others. In short, people were not happy.

But to this I ask, was anyone really surprised? After all, "Time Out Chicago" announced that they were going online-only and eliminating 60% of their staff. "Variety" is no longer printing out a daily edition and fired its longtime film and theater critic in 2010. And downsizing and depression rages in publications across the nation. Arts journalism is floundering and it's scary. I've been scared ever since I decided, during a recession, that I was going to be a journalist and that print was dying and I should count myself lucky if I ever got a job. 

Were we surprised that "Back Stage" decided to follow what is already an industry-wide trend in downsizing? And if the reasons truly were, as executive editor Daniel Holloway explained, "the metrics," aka the lack of hits, can we blame them?

These days, not even theater artists can seem to agree on why reviews and criticism are important, if they're important at all. In this age of lacking arts coverage, you'd think people would argue less about "Why can't artists be critics?" "Why can't critics hang out with us first?" "Why can't we get better critics?" and more about, "How do we save criticism which is how we get publicity?"

The quandary as I see it (at the moment because I'm young and prone to changing my mind) is the question for any theater artist: how do you get the audience to engage with your work? For theater artists, it's how do you get the audience to engage so that they will buy a ticket and then tell their friends. For journalists it's: how do you get people to read the article?

That Run in "Girls"

It all started when my sister asked me to come over to her apartment for the weekend to help her babysit her 7 month old, since my sister's husband was out for the weekend. And that led her to tell me that she had HBO Go. That, plus my roommate having HBO Go, meant that I now have HBO Go. I will now take overtures of friendship (preferably with booze).

So that was how I started watching the rest of "Girls." I'd only watch the pilot and at the time, it didn't seem like a show that I wanted to search the far (and Trojan-filled) Internet to find. But now that I have binged-watch both seasons of "Girls" in five days, I want to hone in on that scene at the end of the second season finale, "Together."

To summarize: Hannah, suffering from an OCD breakdown because she can't meet her book deadline, calls Adam, her boyfriend who she called the cops on in the second episode of the season. He answers the phone, sees her ticks (and her haphazard bowl haircut) and runs to her apartment shirtless (which according to Vulture, would have taken him 30 minutes).

In the Inside the Episodes commentary for the finale, Lena Dunham calls the scene "both the first step for Hannah's recovery and the first time she's actually been there for [Adam], which she couldn't be before" as well as describing Adam in that moment as needing to "get his woman."

And that is the heart of what I find problematic about "Girls." Viscerally, as a single woman who was dumped late last year, the sight of a man running to the rescue made me (literally) giggle madly. It was so grand, so romantic and so unlike anything that ever happens in real life. Because the character of Hannah has been brought so low and was so alone, just seeing a guy she loved race to be with her was heartwarming, in that way that Hollywood likes to tell you is heartwarming, when really it's just reinforcing gender stereotypes.

And in reality, making a guy run to you in the middle of the night shirtless is not a healthy barometer for a relationship. He might just really like running. I'm still trying to figure out if Hannah's OCD spell was written in by Dunham to give sympathy to an unlikeable and self-absorbed character.

The Freedom to be Poor

I've been thinking quite a bit about money. Not the least of course because I'm a millennial who is a first-generation immigrant, working in journalism, with student loans to pay back. If there was a recipe for someone who doesn't have money, that would be it. Luckily, I don't eat very much and I haven't outgrown any piece of clothing since puberty.

Lately though, I've also been thinking about privilege. Or rather, the things that allow people like artists and journalists to do what it is that we do. I was reading this article in the New York Times titled: "The No-Limits Job," about how young people in the creative class are taking steadily lower paying jobs but are working longer hours despite that.

“We need to hire a 22-22-22,” one new-media manager was overheard saying recently, meaning a 22-year-old willing to work 22-hour days for $22,000 a year. Perhaps the middle figure is an exaggeration, but its bookends certainly aren’t. According to a 2011 Pew report, the median net worth for householders under 35 dropped by 68 percent from 1984 to 2009, to $3,662. Lest you think that’s a mere side effect of the economic downturn, for those over 65, it rose 42 percent to $170,494 (largely because of an overall gain in property values). Hence 1.2 million more 25-to-34-year-olds lived with their parents in 2011 than did four years earlier. 

Jogging Instead of Sprinting

"This is the worst pain ever!"

Back in November, I was at the wedding of a close friend. I was a bridesmaid. The bride and I have been friends since we were 16, and we promised each other that when one of us got married, the other would be a bridesmaid. And that's where the similarities between us ended. After high school, we both went onto different roads. She has an associate's degree and never moved out of the city we grew up in. Her and her husband both work at Disneyland, where they met, and they share an apartment and eventually want to share a pet and a baby together.

As for me, I'm trying to make it work in New York City, with my master's degree and job in journalism, barely having enough money for rent and food. I've become a very good cook, not because I love cooking (which I do), but because I can't afford to eat out.

And I wonder, what it must be like to be satisfied with such simple things, to be happy with just going to work, coming home to a husband, make dinner for that husband and occasionally take a trip to Vegas and call that vacation. Talk about the future, a new apartment, maybe have a baby... If I had a husband, I would be so much more financially stable...

As it is, I have no daily routine. Some days I go home and cook. Other days I go to the gym (where I run while thinking about food). Most days I go to the theater. And other days I come home and keep working, reading, blogging and thinking up pitches. The extent of my long-term planning is a maybe-summer-vacation, where I'll hopefully be on a sandy beach somewhere having a margarita.

And I tend to be hard on myself. When I see the bios of other journalists and see who they've written for, I think, why haven't I written for these places? Why is my resume not longer? I need to work harder, I need to be putting out more content, be a better editor. I need to update my blog more.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a person like my friend, who has never traveled internationally, who is just happy with a job and her husband. There are still financial struggles and worries about the future, but at least she is satisfied with her life. As for me, I'm in a position now where people have said, "I would kill for your job" and I answer with, "Really?" I'm not satisfied, I want more.

Back in graduate school, I thought if I could just get a job writing about what I love, I would be happy. And I am happy with the work I've done and with the magazine that I work for, but I can't help feel like there's more that I can give. I wonder, will there ever be a time where I'll be happy exactly where I am?

Or is it like a song from "Avenue Q" that goes, "Everyone's a little bit unsatisfied." If so, my parents lied to me. Or they were very good at ignoring how unsatisfied they were with their lives.

Which is to say, in short, I don't know what I'm doing. All I know is that I need to keep working. I have a couple of projects in the pipeline that I'm excited about. And I just need to keep the momentum and keep on working towards my present goals, and to stop being angry at myself for not reaching them fast enough. As a friend and I were talking about last week, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

I wonder what will happen when I reach the finish, will I have to keep running?

A Cricket Chirping

A common question that I get asked, because I work for a fairly well-known theater publication, and I know a great deal more than the average person about theater (for better or for worst), is, "Do you have a theater background?" I have decided to come clean with all of you and say...nope. Nada. Nothing.

Lack of Diversity in Damning Numbers

I leave town for a week to get a much-needed vacation away from New York City, and to clear my head. And while I'm gone, what comes out? A continuation of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (which I wrote about last year here and here) 2012 survey of the racial breakdown of actors on Broadway and in the not-for-profit theater in New York City. The news was the numbers in the 2011-12 season.

And they were not pretty.

On Broadway, the casting breakdown was as followed:

• Caucasian: 74%
• African-American: 19%
• Latino: 2%
• Asian-American: 3%

For the top 16 not-for-profit theaters in New York City, the numbers were:

• Caucasian: 77%
• African-American: 16 %
• Latino: 3%
• Asian-American: 3%
• Others: 1%