Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 12 Part 4 — Note: Unless you’re familiar with the exercise described below, I do not recommend attempting it without an experienced teacher or guide. In the fall of 2010, four and a half years clean from meth, I started my first year of grad school at the New School for Drama in NYC. …

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 12 Part 3 — In early 2009, three years clean from meth, I finished my Bachelors, but my first attempt to audition for a small selection of grad schools came up short. I’d try again the next year, but in the meantime, I needed to start climbing the show business ladder again. Springfield Rep…

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 12 Part 2 — Was I on… a date? I didn’t know I was on a date. Michael didn’t know he was on a date. But I think… I think we were on a date! I was back in Illinois for Springfield Rep’s 5th annual summer season, and by some scheduling fluke, Michael and…

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 12 Part 1 — It was late August, 2006. I’d been clean and meth free for nearly 8 months, a little longer than before my relapse the previous year. I’d just returned from Springfield Rep’s third annual summer theater festival. It was another summer of awesome roles, including Tom in The Glass Menagerie. I…

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 11 Part 6 — Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use and sexual situations. “Would you like to come over for Thanksgiving? I’m making ham.” I had hooked up with Stephen a couple of times. He was an odd duck: early fifties, jet black hair receding to a widow’s peak, tall and lanky, generous nose…

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 11 Part 5 — Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use and sexual situation. It was closing night of Jesus Christ Superstar. While I gave the same performance I’d given for the past two months, I was simultaneously standing outside of myself: unthinking, catatonic, still. Richard had flown out from New Jersey to see closing…

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 11 Part 4 — We’d reached the Crucifixion. I was center stage, arms outstretched on the cross in nothing but a loincloth. …

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 11 Part 3 — I arrived at the dinner theater near Dayton, Ohio a day before rehearsals for Jesus Christ Superstar. Though I was ready to play Simon Zealot, the weight of understudying both Jesus and Judas was starting to hit me. The first to arrive, I parked and made my way into the…

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 11 Part 2 — It was warm, almost hot. Mid-June temps danced around 80 degrees. Yellowing grass crunched beneath my sneakers. The public park had been so green the summer before for our A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Today, it was suffering under a drought as we rehearsed Much Ado About Nothing. We weren’t suffering…