I dreamed that I was at the theater[1],
working, when a colleague came to see me, to remind me that I had an upcoming
interview for the role of Bob Brustein’s (the Founding Artistic Director of the A.R.T.) executive assistant. I was in an office crowded with not-office furniture. Though I had no recollection of scheduling
the interview, I pretended I was all set for it. My colleague said, “You’re not wearing that,
though. When are you changing?” I assured her that I was about to change into
something more appropriate, and started going through the wardrobes and closets
to find something to change into.[2] I chose my outfit: a white, scoop-neck t-shirt, a black flowy
skirt, and an aqua vinyl blazer.[3]
On my
way to the interview, I got side-tracked.
DEVO was hosting a huge event, and there were cloth-covered tables
stacked with bottles of champagne, and crowds of people mingling. I found a DEVO colleague, and asked her what was
going on. She said, “It’s for Harvard
Business School – help yourself! They’ll
never notice.” I grabbed a class of wine
and weaved through the crowd.
By the
time I got to Bob’s office, I was more than twenty minutes late. We had a brief but pleasant conversation, and
agreed to reschedule for another time, since our interview had been so
abbreviated. (I was so embarrassed about
being so late, but tried to just focus on the conversation.)
As I
headed back to the theater, I passed through three enormous wood-paneled
ballrooms, with wide doorways connecting each.
There were five or six guys in there, playing an unrecognizable and
complicated game, involving throwing balls and Frisbees back and forth to one
another, and occasionally ricocheting them against the walls. The wood-paneling – once elegant – was chipped
and splintering. I thought to tell them
to knock it off, but remembered that we had an upcoming capital renovation, and
figured those rooms would be demolished as part of that.
Suddenly,
the theater doors opened and patrons started pouring out of the theater; I hadn’t
even realized there was a matinee going on.
Bob Brustein came out of the theater, and beckoned me into an
office. Kelsey Grammer joined us there,
and Bob and Kelsey spoke for a while about casting for Finding Neverland. Kelsey was insistent that it was important to
find a big-name star, in order to attract families to come to the show. Bob handed me some crumpled material and a
ripped off strip of paper, and asked that I ensure that my colleague, T, got the
items. I set off to find an inter-office
envelope.
I
passed through another office, crowded with staff, and stopped to listen: The box office manager and the producer were having a
debate. The producer was saying, “There’s
absolutely no way.” The box office manager was saying,
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s really good, and you should give it a
shot.” It turned out that he was
trying to convince her to watch The Great Muppet Caper, and DB was having
none of it, insisting that the first Muppet Movie was so bad that she certainly
wasn’t going to watch a sequel. I joined
him in trying to persuade her to give The Great Muppet Caper a viewing,
but did caution her that it wasn’t nearly as good as the first.[4] I remembered that I was supposed to be
finding an envelope, and excused myself from the debate.
I went
into the next room; it was nearly empty, but there was a shoe-box on the
floor. I decided that could be a
reasonable stand-in for an interoffice envelope, and dropped the items from Bob
into the box. Before I closed it up,
though, I noticed there was already stuff in there. I turned on the overhead light, and saw that
the box had lots of tiny figurines[5]
-- too many to just put in my pockets – so I left the box behind, and continued
my search for an envelope.
I had a
sudden revelation: I didn’t want to be
Bob’s assistant. I like my job as it
is. I decided that I had to drop
everything, go home, and draft a letter to Bob (with copies to HR) to let them know I was withdrawing my candidacy. As I was rushing back to my apartment, I
passed a parade of huge inflated floats[6]
and laughed, assuming that the props department was up to hijinks. I got to my building, struggled to find the right
key to open the front door, and climbed the narrow, twisting stairway to my
apartment. Before I could get my
apartment door unlocked, I woke up.
Never
did find an envelope!
[1] The
theater didn’t resemble the theater I actually work at in any way.
[2]In
real life, I just gave away about 7 pairs of business-attire trousers, since I
never wear them anymore.
[3] In
real life, I just bought a Kate Spade bag at TJ Maxx that is aqua vinyl, and I
love it. It would be a hideous blazer,
though.
[4] To
this day, The Muppet Movie is in my top-five all-time favorite movies.
[6]
Think Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
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