What Would Little KB Think?

I think I was a relatively remarkable little kid.  I was a total weirdo, not terribly charming or attractive, but smart enough.  And creative enough.  For instance: I played a game in second grade called "Boy of the Day" where I would line the boys up against the cafeteria wall, spin in a circle with my eyes closed, and whoever I landed on got to eat lunch with me.  For an unattractive kid, creating a competition gameshow out of lunch was a pretty swell idea.  Another instance: my friend Roseanne and I used to host a talk show in the ladies lounge (code for fancy useless sitting area of the bathroom) in Parrish Hall in elementary school.  We discussed all sorts of issues, but most of what I recall had to do with art and boys.

Not much has changed.

Okay, maybe a lot has.  But in so many ways, the trajectory of my life is completely predictable and totally unsurprising.

For those of you who don't know (and I haven't the foggiest idea why I am sharing this with you) I went by the nickname "Katie Beth" for the first eighteen years of my life.  I utterly abhor this name.  Though my mother will argue otherwise, I have loathed this name for as long as I can remember, and started going by my legitimate full name (...Katharine) as soon as humanly possible (college.)

Katie Beth was far more precocious than Katharine.  She was also more ambitious.  Katie Beth would be utterly depressed by the state 22 year old Katharine has.  First of all, being 22 never really occurred to Katie Beth.  KB (as she was and is still known by some closest and oldest friends/family) desperately yearned to be older and fabulous, but exceeding 21 wasn't necessarily a part of that plan.  KB also would have written a book by now and had way more money than 22 year old Katharine has.

Let's take an inventory of what little KB would think of my current life status, shall we?

Katharine joined a sorority. #kbfail

Katharine left an arts admin scholarship #kbfail

Katharine currently lives at home #kbfail

Katharine is not famous, nor is especially good at any singular thing #kbfail

Katharine thought college was disappointing #kbfail

Katharine tried acting #mediocre

Katharine tried her hand at theater in Dallas #chorusgirlwin

Katharine is still a chorus girl #kbfail

Katharine isn't ballsy enough to move to New York, even though that's been a dream for over a decade #kbfail

Katharine has met amazing people #kbwin

Katharine is single, focused, and driven #kbwin

Katharine leaves Wednesday to do a show in the Northeast #kbwin

Katharine no longer plays boy of the day #growingup

Katharine is doing the best she can #reality

Joseph L. Mankiewicz Knew a Thing or Two

I was saying that the Theater is nine -tenths hard work. Work done the hard way - by sweat, application and craftsmanship. I’ll agree to this - that to be a good actor, actress, or anything else in the Theater, means wanting to be that more than anything else in the world…

It means concentration of ambition, desire, and sacrifice such as no other profession demands… And I’ll agree that the man or woman who accepts those terms can’t be ordinary, can’t be - just someone. To give so much for almost always so little…”

“So little. So little, did you say? Why, if there’s nothing else - there’s applause. It’s like - like waves of love coming over the footlights and wrapping you up. Imagine…To know, every night, that
different hundreds of people love you… they smile, their eyes shine - you’ve pleased them, they want you, you belong. Just that alone is worth anything…”