I am auditioning for NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, telling my peers that it is my dream school. I do not expect to be admitted, but the experience will be valuable. I hand the auditors a resume I wrote on notebook paper five minutes prior, along with a picture my sister ripped in half in the waiting room so I would have a headshot to give them. I take direction well. They offer me a scholarship, and I do not have to quit.

I am sitting in a room with seventy-two actors for our freshman year orientation. The sage teacher leans on his cane and intones, “In a way, this is Hogwarts.”

We have all read Harry Potter. We lean forward as one.

“You’ll be learning magic here. How to create life out of nothing.” At last, we will all know the secret to brilliance, and we will all perform on Broadway. Anything short of two Tony Awards would be failure. Four years later, only sixteen of these students will graduate together. I will not be one of them. I will graduate with another class, because my education will also take place in a mental hospital, a sheet metal factory, and a black box theater in De Pere, Wisconsin.

But no theater education is complete without references to Thespis, the first Greek actor to step out of the chorus and speak alone. The impulse to perform dates back thousands of years. No actor would step into the blue spotlight without a certain hunger, a desire to be the only one heard. This hunger flows through the the theater majors of every university. We do not doubt that we are hungry; we only wonder if we are hungry enough.

Two years later, I am lying on a stiff couch, wrapped in a thin white sheet. I am trying to sleep through the sound of a woman screaming at a hospital employee. She demands drugs, anything that will ease the vaguely defined pain. I feel that I am less helpless than her, because I did not come to this emergency room due to a drug addiction. At the same time, I feel that I am exactly like her, because I have come seeking help with a vaguely defined pain.

My pain stems from my work: I am at odds with my impulse to put on a mask. I wish to be authentic, to run away from the theater and never look back. I do not sleep this night; I think only of escaping the theater.

A social worker with bags under her eyes asks me why I am in the hospital. I tell her I attempted to throw myself from the tenth floor of a building. She asks why.

“If I lie so much that I can’t even control it, I’m a sociopath, and the world would be better off without me.” I have rehearsed this logic for the last twelve hours, since the moment my teacher told me that falling in love with my scene partner should be easy. I consider the conundrum unresolvable. The social worker sighs and offers advice.

I have forgotten everything she told me. She gave me perspective, encouragement, and conversation. She convinced me to go on medication, and she made me laugh by describing mortality as being “toast.” She convinced me to continue being alive, somehow.

One week later, I am sitting at a table on the eleventh floor of NYU’s Tisch Hospital, holding court. A dozen of my closest friends are visiting me, and the other patients on my floor will tell me how lucky I am to have such support. Still, I inform my friends that I need to leave school and seek medical attention at home. I tell them that I want to quit.

Within a month, I have a job building custom enclosures with Wisconsin men who listen to Nickelback and do not go to the theater. Within three months I am in a community production of Man of La Mancha, belting out the finale with the rest of the chorus. The song is called, “The Impossible Dream.” The cast, crew, and audience convince me to continue being an actor, somehow. This has not changed.