Alexandra Silber's Blog, page 9

Happy Birthday, Alec

 Happy Birthday, Alec.
 
How could I possibly articulate how magnificent Alec George Hao Silver is, and what he means to me?
 
How could I ever accurately capture what he has achieved, done, and grown to be, in the last year of his life?

But I’ll try:
 
In the last year Alec has stood by me (alongside my mother of course) through 3 major surgeries, waited in hospital rooms, driven me to 100+ appointments and the ER—all with grace and calm.
 
He grew as an artist— teaching young people, acting in coun...

Carla: A Friend Gush

Oh hello there. Are you in need of some inspiration?
 
Behold: This is my friend Carla Stickler.
 
Last week (in the midst of everything) Carla flew to NYC from her new home outside Chicago, to answer a call from Wicked on Broadway: “Hi Carla, we know you haven’t been a part of the full time company since 2015, but can you be here in a few days to standby for Elphaba?”
 
Carla has recently pivoted away from showbiz and taken on a new career in coding. She has not played this role in seven years and k...

Number 1 Theatrical Production of 2021

 Thank you, The Guardian. 

Hello Again and again and again

 When I arrived on the “shores” of New York City in the winter of 2011 I was what can only be described as a “total disaster human—” faking adulthood and literally living on Tyne Daly’s sofa. Don’t get me wrong— there are worse places to be lost, heartbroken, poorly dressed, couch-surfing and unfamiliar with such adult concepts as a credit score, the cost of milk, or how to get a mobile telephone despite being twenty-six years old and having had, prior to this moment, modest artistic success in ...

Keep lighting candles

Happy festival of lights. Tonight the chanukiah will be full. It's my favorite night of Hanukkah.
 This year I just want to keep lighting candles, over and over again, night after night, all winter long. Let’s get every dusty menorah down from the dusty back rooms and abandoned closets we haven’t laid eyes on in years, and just keep lighting and lighting until we fully illuminate every place, every space in ourselves, that hasn’t seen light for a very long time.

The miracle is the spark of hope, ...

Happy Anniversary Healthy Body!

 This is the last photograph of my un-scarred body. The last photo of a sick woman. The final photo of Alexandra Silber with colitis. 

"Hey Colon? *BYE GIRL!* You were a huge jerk!"

One year ago today I took a huge leap, took power back over my health and my life, and after seven years of being an autoimmune warrior with severe ulcerative colitis, I (with the support of so many) made the choice to have my entire large intestine removed. It was the first of 3 major surgeries (the 2 to follow wou...

We did it.

 And just like that, the Troupe disperses. What a life we lead. The sacrifices made to serve as we do. For all of the emotional, spiritual and physical labor, we do it because we love it. We love to tell stories and hopefully affect change and offer insight. 

For this, we often aren't paid much, we are often far from family and friends, we miss important life events and don't often enjoy fame or the perks of glittering stardom. Theatre-people are chasing something else, and despite all of these s...

Heaven is...

Darling Women,  

Pico Iyer said “heaven is where you think of nowhere else…” 
I love this definition so much. It captures something ineffable. 
I mention it because this experience has been so extraordinary, in ways I will be unraveling for a long while. The sacrifices of an actor’s life have always been vast— mind-boggling emotional labor, physical labor, mental sharpness, diplomacy, navigating egos and emotional intimacy with strangers, all while being so physically far away from the place we cal...

The Adult Censor

As adults, as we experience more criticism and feedback, are told to be “realistic” and “practical,” in our ambitions, imaginations and scope of the wider world; and as a result, the Adult Self becomes less open to playful and creative thinking. It starts to control everything about our waking lives.

That bossy, judge-y, grouchy, productivity-obsessed voice? Yeah. That’s your Adult Self. That’s the *INNER CENSOR* adult-brain trying to helicopter-parent your poor little child-artist. 

The Ad...

Right Now...

I've spent the last few decades of my life proverbially standing in a position of striving. In many ways that stance was probably responsible for my accomplishments and actualization.  When I was running from grief, I was under the impression that achievement meant I had "turned out okay." It did not.  When I was rumbling with my illness I used striving as a form of healthy denial, then a goal to meet in order to provide the appearance of "wellness," and eventually as a form of goal-setting— ach...