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Today I find myself wondering: is it worse to get kicked while you're down, or to crash while you're flying high? I suppose there's probably nothing in particular to recommend one scenario over the other.
The latter is what has
what just happened to Shobhit. This was the first lead part he had ever been cast in, and it was incredibly exciting. Things were looking up for his acting career, particularly in the Pacific Northwest region. It had to be a giant boost to his confidence, which is now utterly destroyed.
I'm glad I wrote all that out last night. I don't have the time or the bandwidth for it today. I will say, though, that as the evening wore on, Shobhit started to say things like, "I must have been really awful for them to fire me." I told him he can't think that way, but he wasn't really hearing it. I noted that he's been in other productions and done really well, and naturally his reply was, "But not in the lead."
I really feel like he's been treated unfairly, but who else is going to see that? Laney, after reading my blog post which links to
the play page already showing the replacement guy in the lead part, noted something I hadn't even registered: Shobhit was replaced by a White guy. Now, to be sort of fair, whatever the reason they had for replacing Shobhit, this guy might have simply been the best they had available. It still feels a little like insult to injury. This production had so much potential with a nonwhite immigrant actor in this particular part, and all of that is now being wiped away.
I have no idea how quickly the rest of the cast has or will be notified of this casting change, but I really hope they contact Shobhit with some semblance of support. I'd say that presumably they're being notified before they all return for rehearsal tomorrow night, but who the fuck knows? They updated the website so quickly after Shobhit's rehearsal yesterday that they had to have known before yesterday's rehearsal, in which case it's bonkers they did any rehearsal with him at all. Was this replacement guy contacted some days ago to see if he could be on standby for a potential recasting, I wonder? I can only feel like Shobhit has been really jerked around here. I remain stunned that Shobhit was given no indication that things were not going well, and indeed as far as he could tell the rehearsals
were going well.
Something only occurred to me just as I was writing this. I wonder if any part of this was not the director's own doing? Could a production company board, or comparable entity, have forced his hand on this decision? Well, whatever: the director of this play is also the production company's Artistic Director, so he'd have to have had a hand in the decision. And there's still something to be said for how it was handled—in a way that was deeply disrespectful.
I emailed Gabby this morning about the news, so she would know that I'm waiting to hear back on protocol regarding whether people who bought tickets will want refunds. In retrospect it might have been better to wait a bit to tell her, as although I knew she was in Mexico the past several days, I had totally forgotten she was in Puerto Vallarta—where
chaos has erupted at the instigation of cartels in the wake of El Mencho's killing.
Gabby messaged our team over Teams this morning, and I asked if she feels like she's in a safe place. Her mom lives down there, but not in Puerto Vallarta proper, so she's with her mom and outside of where things like busses being set on fire is happening. But, she was meant to fly home out of the Puerto Vallarta airport yesterday and her flight was canceled. It sounds like she has already re-booked a flight home, at least. I was even scheduled to have my Annual Performance Review meeting with her tomorrow, which she rescheduled this morning, pushing it to Thursday. It didn't even occur to me when I first saw that change that this could be why.
By way of sort-of apology, I messaged her directly to say that had I realized where she was, I would have waited to email her; she has much bigger things to worry about right now. She replied that she had just read my email "and my heart sank." She even said "That might be worse than what's going on here," which I think was half-joking (she ended it with a smiley face, though before she also added "I'm so sorry!!"), but I told her I would disagree with that but still thanked her. I would argue that personal safety trumps crushing disappointment, but I suppose it's also all contextual.
I've still never been to Mexico, and people have assured me before that even though it can be very unsafe not far outside of Puerto Vallarta, it's totally safe inside the city. What's happened over the past few days feels like that's a rather unconvincing assurance. What does it matter if this is an incredibly rare occurrence, if we can see how quite easily the cartels can scare the shit out of all the tourists in one of the cities they've been assured they'll be fine visiting? And this doesn't even acknowledge how they terrorize locals in the area.
Danielle posted to Facebook about how it's her favorite Mexican city, with a broken heart emoji. She goes there frequently and has talked about eventually moving there. This probably hasn't deterred her desire to do so, but it does make me worry more about her safety there. Maybe if the Mexican government takes out a powerful cartel leader, they should be a little more foreful in warning people that there could be violent and dangerous retribution for it.
Between Puerto Vallarta and Shobhit getting let go from his play, this has been the wildest start to a week that I have experienced in a long, long time.
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And I still have only updated you on my weekend from Saturday evening through this morning. I had no socializing with others the rest of the weekend prior, but I did still do a lot.
On Friday, right after work, I took myself to see
Crime 101 at AMC Pacific Place—and really quite liked it. I went home and wrote my review while Shobhit was at his rehearsal in Tacoma, having no idea they were going to let him go in two days.
On Saturday, I actually went to a Town Hall for the 43rd Legislative District, featuring my three State Representatives: Shaun Scott, who is 41 and in the seat former Speaker Frank Chopp vacated; Nicole Macri, who is 52 and the latest in a consecutive line of openly gay representatives in a single seat that's lasted longer than
any other seat in the world (since 1987); and Jamie Pedersen, who is 57 and is now in his 20th year in the State Legislature.
I mention all of their ages because a funny thing happened with Rep. Shaun Scott. He referred to a constituent he spoke to as "an elderly gentleman in his fifties or sixties," and this was met with a
wave of groans from the audience, with a generous sprinkling of laughter mixed in. At the time I thought he was in his thirties, which made the gaffe only slightly more understandable, but a 41-year-old calling someone in their fifties
elderly? Even I'm about to turn 50 in a couple of months so I kind of thought:
Excuse me? I still thought it was funny and laughed, but someone might want to get this guy hip to the average age of Town Hall attendees.
There was something about him, too, that made me wonder if he is at least on some subtle level neurodivergent. His relative youth had no effect on how impressively knowledgeable and well spoken he was on virtually any issue that was brought up, though. All three of them know their shit. The people in that room
really want them to pass the "
Millionair's Tax," which I am also all for, though there could be reasonable debate as to how to do it and what to do with the funds. That said, within a day my niece who lives in Eastern Washington shared a Facebook post urging people to sign an online petition to the State Legislature stating they
oppose the tax: "It never stays 'just for the rich,'" the writer of the original post said. Give me a fucking break. Do these people have any idea how much less percentage of their earnings rich people pay in taxes than middle-class or poor people do? The very least we can do is equalize things. I clicked right through without comment, and selected "pro" on the petition.
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An update from this morning: Shobhit is doing five hours of volunteer work for TPS this morning and early afternoon, which meant he would be around a lot of other people who work in regional theater. I really hoped he would find some support there, and it sounds like he found a bit: I asked him if it was going okay and if he was doing okay, and he said yes. He said three or four people gave him hugs, and these included both his boss and his agent. I was really glad to hear that. I guess his agent suggested writing an email to the production company asking for a detailed explanation, which does immediately make me worry about any potential for contentiousness, but it is also an absolutely reasonable suggestion.
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[posted 12:30pm]
