Acting Leads You to Crazy Places

“Go speed reader, go!” was just one of the headlines of my recent fling with 15 minutes of fame, and the funny thing is, it wasn’t for acting.

I recently made a brief appearance on Capitol Hill as a reader for the 950-page climate change bill that the Energy and Commerce Committee was debating. I was hired because I read fast, really fast, in fact, you can check out a clip of me reading on the Rachael Maddow show last Friday night if you want to catch a glimpse of what I mean.

It was really fun being semi-famous (at least amongst my friends and colleagues) for about a week and a half, and having people on the Web insult me for no reason, including a couple of my favorites, that I’m a “Muslim Terrorist”, and that I “sit in my parents’ basement practicing speed reading on Harry Potter.” On the brighter side, I was called an “amphetamine tongued warlock” and “an auctioneer on steroids” by national television and news outlets, and I couldn’t have done it without my NCDA training in voice.

It’s funny how living the life of an actor can make other opportunities play out in other parts of your life. So far, my acting career has taken me across the country, granted me untold hours of fun doing what I love to do professionally, given me the experience of sitting in Congress to watch how a bill is marked up, taught me how to juggle, how to do some acrobatics and gymnastics, given me an outlet for my comic songs, introduced me to the great cities of Philadelphia and Los Angeles, given me a host of lifelong friends all across the country, plentiful teaching opportunities and made me a director and artistic director. And now - a speed reader!

Crazy.