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Shobhit seemed to be doing a little better yesterday. This may have just been a difference between his internal feelings and his external behavior, but it really felt like the empathy he received from a number of people at TPS, where he went to volunteer yesterday as a bartender during "Generals" (general auditions that have the potential to lead to parts in plays across the region), made a significant difference. By the time he picked me up from work last night, he was much less down than he had been Sunday evening, and was even smiling and joking with other customers a couple of times when we were at Costco.
He did tell me, on the car ride down there, that he had not slept well Sunday night. "That's understandable," I said. I wouldn't have slept well at all either, in his position. Who would?
I still think there's a couple of salient points that really need to be kept in mind.
First, and this is not at
all to diminish the devastating emotional impact of being let go not just from a play halfway through rehearsals, but from
the lead part—but, this is still something that happens. You take the time to process, even to grieve, but then you pick up and keep going. I really hope Shobhit continues auditioning. He may need to take a break from it for a while, which would also be understandable. But as horrible a blow as this was, I don't think it means he needs to give up. Shobhit even said at one point on Sunday evening that he feels like he's been set back all the way to where he was in his acting career in 2016, which was when gave up on pursuing acting in Los Angeles and moved back to Seattle. I honestly don't think it's quite like that. This is a massive setback, to be sure, but the kinds of local and regional opportunities that were there before he was cast in this part are still there. It's true that this part had the potential to open up doors for him like never before, but this is also the nature of acting: it's a pursuit riddled with crushing setbacks, over and over again, and the only way through is to keep pushing against them.
Second, there remains the issue of basically zero transparency regarding how and why the decision to let Shobhit go was made. It's worth noting again, just as I did in yesterday's post, that his agent suggested he send an email asking for a detailed explanation. They had to have had his replacement lined up well before Shobhit even went to rehearsal on Sunday, and it all feels like Shobhit was unnecessarily jerked around. Did the director have doubts about Shobhit's fit in the part from the start? If so, why the fuck was he cast in the first place? Given the end result here, he would have been far better off had he never gotten the part at all.
Shobhit, as a brown skinned immigrant, was going to give this part a very interesting spin, by the way—which won't be there with this White guy who is now in the part. There are all kinds of things we could speculate as to what the issue or issues might have been with Shobhit, but we won't know exactly what it was unless he ever gets told.
Mondays are the day off every week from rehearsals, just like they are for typical stage performances. This means tonight is the first rehearsal without Shobhit, and presumably with the new guy. I'm still dying to know whether the rest of the cast has been informed yet, or if they're all going to be blindsided by the news at rehearsal tonight, all of them rehearsing with a completely different guy than the one they've been rehearsing with for the past two weeks. If it's the latter, will he get texts or calls from any of them? This whole situation just feels so fucked all the way around.
I'm still waiting to hear back from the Box Office about getting refunds, as I will only inform others who bought tickets until I can offer instructions on what to do, if indeed they can do anything. Box Office hours only start at noon on Tuesdays each week, though, so I didn't necessarily expect any response before that, and I do wonder if there will have to be any behind-the-scenes discussions about how to handle what is likely to be a wave of refund requests.
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— पाँच हज़ार नौ सौ सतहत्तर —
We did end up buying a few things at Costco, but we went there for two key other reasons besides regular shopping: I ordered my next year's supply of contact lenses through their Optemetry department, paying with my FSA Card and then I'll have to submit a claim to Aetna for reimbursement because Costco doesn't work directly with Aetna. On the upside, this should result in my getting a cash refund for something I used my FSA Card to cover. I wonder how successfully anyone manages to run a racket like this?
The other thing was the returning of my "weather resistant" shoes. I really liked them, but I liked them when they worked. They actually
were pretty weather resistant—until a crack wore through the sole on the left shoe and then rainwater seeped through it to get my sock wet. "Weather resistant," indeed. I just bought these shoes there last November! Granted, I got them for only $25 and God knows how many children put them together some unknown place on the other side of the world; I probably should have known to expect this. Except, of course, for how much people lionize Costco as a company overall.
The upside is that they'll let you return product for a refund—in this case even though I had been using it for three months. Granted, three months is a ridiculously short time for shoes to wear a hole through the sole. I would have just bought a new pair of the same shoes, actually, but they are no longer selling them—such is the case with tons of the stuff Costco sells: they only had it for a limited time. I just bought a different new pair of shoes. These ones are slip-ons, which I prefer anyway; I love that I'll no longer have to spend time tying and untying shoes just because it's raining. On the other hand, these shoes are going to be a lot less protective when it
is raining. I mean, at least for now they won't be leaking straight through the bottom.
It did occur to me, though, that I could just make this my new system: maybe I should just return these ones also, when they inevitably wear out?
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We drove home, Shobhit made dinner, and Shobhit attended a Zoom tax class of some kind of members of SAG-AFTRA. (Speaking of which, with Shobhit not being at rehearsal, small sliver lining: I won't have to go to the Actor Awards viewing party on Sunday without him after all.) I wound up in an unusually lengthy text exchange with Valerie, my dad's cousin and the late, great Auntie Rose's daughter, who has been participating in my Birth Week every years since Auntie Rose passed away in 2020. We settled on an activity and a date for our regular Birth Week activity, and she even said she'd like to come to the birthday party planned at Dad and Sherri's in Olympia on May 2. That made me really happy.
I'm thinking of this as a "family birthday party," at which there is a blanket invitation to all family. I am inviting just a few select friends, the ones I am so close to that I consider them family: Danielle, Gabriel, Barbara (who I am flying out from Louisville), and Laney. Laney is the only person I have asked to give me anything for my birthday, aside from the ask for Dad and Sherri to host the party: I asked her to write me a song. She plans to perform it at the party, possibly accompanied by ukulele, with which she's been taking weekly music lessons. (Not just because of my party; that's coincidental, but also useful.)
I spoke to Dad and Sherri briefly on the phone a couple of days ago, and although I had already told Dad that Barbara will be there, he had totally forgotten to mention it to Sherri. I mentioned Barbara in passing, and Sherri was like, "Barbara's coming?" She was excited, as I knew she would be. She said every time she sees Barbara she thinks it's going to be the last time. But then there comes another opportunity. I'm not sure when another one might happen after this, though. I'm not going to have a 50th birthday party again, and by the time I'm 60, Barbara will be 83 (and Sherri will turn 84 the same month I turn 60). Then again, you never know: Barbara's stamina, especially in the face of a defiant refusal to get medical care of any kind
since the eighties, continues to be astonishing.
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. . . Okay, well I just got back from my lunch break, and I had an email from the theater Box Office. The woman said she would refund me the money I paid for a companion ticket on March 22 and I can direct others to either their box office email or phone number to do the same.
I can't say this made me feel
good, but at least I'm relieved the response did not make me feel worse. Except for one part: the email signature includes a little banner ad for this very play, with a photo of the cast looking at the camera—presumably meant to be looking at the character Shobhit had been cast to play, but now will not be. That same photo is now on
the play's landing page. Honestly it does make my heart sink a little just to see that.
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[posted 12:37pm]
