Dorothy Parker to Ernest Hemingway:
“What exactly do you mean by guts?”
Hemingway: “I mean grace under pressure.”
In Sports Illustrated article, “Exit Stage Center,” on Derek Jeter by Tom Verducci, Jeter states “I think part of that is focus. So is work ethic. You do things over and over again, and when you get in a situation you like to think it comes natural.” Over the years, Jeter has walked the walk of his belief and stands now as someone who must have done the right thing.
In my personal world, the discipline of a dancer falls under the same category and bleeds into every other profession requiring focus and work ethic. Not everyone will achieve the fame of Derek Jeter, however, applying his philosophy to each of our own lives may one day achieve similar results from which any individual can take pride. And failing is not an option.
Jeter has been known to show anger rarely, but watching a teammate accept losing, pushed those delicate buttons in him. “I think most people want to win at everything, but the thing that separates you is if losing bothers you,” Jeter says.
Yeah. Losing has always bothered me. Winning, tho, has not always been my specific goal. Doing the best I could do at any given moment was a primary focus — in a perfect world that work ethic then usually got justly rewarded. And I’ve noticed that when I make a choice, focus my energy to do the best I can, eventually, I end up where I never expected, but it’s somewhere I’m completely proud to be walking that walk. Right now? It’s re-creating a Hungarian wife aboard the hijacked passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985. Having auditioned as an actor for director Tom Morris (War Horse), I’m now working in a company hired specifically to sing; or specifically to dance; and, in my case, specifically to act — much the same as my first show on Broadway, The Rothschilds, was created. At that time, I was one of four female dancers (after two auditions with over 500 other dancers).
This improv, acting audition was not quite as large, but again, I made the cut and find myself part of another large and unique family at The Met. My character is not particularly close to the Klinghoffer Party (whose patriarch dies), but having to understand what it must have been like to have your life threatened for a “greater good” is overwhelming and educating at the same time. The holocaust, of course, comes immediately to mind.
Where does the cycle of death end? What rings loudest in my mind are Sondheim’s lyrics from “Into the Woods” . . .
Careful the things you say
Children will listen, careful the things you do
Children will see and learn
Children may not obey but children will listen
One of the most riviting rehearsal moments thus far for me in this controversial new opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer,” is the mother’s aria inspiring her son to become a terrorist. This, I feel, is where we need to facilitate change. Have Steve and I done our job as parents well enough? Time will tell all, I’m sure, but our motto in the family has always been “Create . . . don’t destroy.” What we know for sure now is neither of our daughter’s like to lose on the ballfield and, from what we can tell, they play the game fair and square — even if the umpire occasionally calls a foul. They just pick themselves up, brush themselves off and start all over again. Because as any winner knows, there’s no crying in baseball (Tom Hanks, “League of Their Own”)!
My daughter always wanted to marry Jeter . . . and, now that she’s a married lady of six months, who knows? With such excellent taste in men, there’s no telling where the journey of her life now will lead. Mazeltov.