“Sometimes I get this sensation that I am speaking or acknowledging what others in the room are thinking.  This is a rich and somewhat mysterious moment I’m talking about.  Maybe this happens because there’s something happening in the room that allows me to pick up on what others might be experiencing, or to anticipate what others are about to experience.  I can sense an opportunity to create the impression that I am speaking what others are only vaguely aware of.  I am both acknowledging the audience’s experience and leading them to that experience.  If I handle this moment properly, the audience will receive it as the truth, convinced that my 'interpretation' could be the only one possible.  This is a moment of communion.  A very fleeting moment, I might add.  The actor’s and the audience’s experiences have intersected, thereby creating the impression that  a significant truth has been revealed.  But it is not the only truth.  It is not definitive.  Another actor on another occasion might create a similar effect by taking an entirely different path.”

​

And this, a speech I wrote for the character named Uncle Vance, from my adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, entitled Uncle Vance ---

​

"​I used to be fearless.  I would stand backstage before an entrance and instead of focusing on all the things an actor is supposed to focus on, I’d say to myself, 'Forget everything, be empty, now go.'  And I would step onto the stage in this state, and the words would begin to just come out of my mouth, and these instincts --- I have no idea where they --- talent!  I had talent! And it saved me.  Repeatedly.  Something would happen, in that very moment, that I knew the audience would recognize as the truth.  It wasn’t always perfect, and sometimes I’d find myself in this race with disaster, but that could be exhilarating, too, so long as I could stay ahead of it.  But then it started closing in, this, uh…this oblivion, it finally caught up with me.  Stopped me dead in my tracks.  And the audience saw it.  They knew it."

​

And this ---

 

“Both [basketball and jazz] reward improvisation and split second decision making against the pressure of time.”

Wynton Marsalis