1 Multihyphenate on the ‘Violent Act of Self-Reverence’ That Is Writing for Yourself

The following Career Dispatch was written by Heather Christian, the writer and star of the play “Animal Wisdom,” a filmed version of which will be available to stream beginning May 15.  

I think it is important to state, before I say anything else, that I came to New York City identifying as a singer/actor who wanted to perform for a living, period. The simplicity of that one true, clear thing was gorgeous and exciting. Twenty years later, I am writing to you as a polyglot multihyphenate who primarily makes performance work for herself—and though that is not an elegant or easy thing to explain to people at parties, nor to fit neatly into a Playbill—it is one of the most beautiful surprise twists of my life. 

Sometimes I like to picture 18-year-old me sitting across from present-day me at the table while I explain to her what my job is now: I imagine she’d be like, “Wait. What?”

It didn’t start out like this. The truth is, when I was released into the workforce in 2004, I very quickly realized that my dream of immediately finding a casting director or writer or composer who was excited by my voice and ability turned out to be pretty wishful thinking. My enthusiasm crushed by a zillion cattle calls and 16-bar selections, I started to feel like I was being buried and eaten by the system. I thought, Maybe there just aren’t roles for me, maybe I’m weirder than I think I am. Or, OK, let’s think positively: Maybe I’ve just got to wait for that divine lightning strike to hit a playwright and miraculously write something I’m perfect for and I manage to get access to that audition and maybe THEN I could start my life, right? 

But, what was I supposed to do with all that time while I was waiting around for that to happen? 

My family is unflappable. In this, I am lucky. When I was a kid, if there was something that needed doing, like fixing a busted water pipe behind an old wall or figuring out how to make a chicken costume from the ground up overnight, my family didn’t call a plumber or the local seamstress, they figured out how to do it themselves. As the daughter of people who just suck it up and figure it out, I approached this problem like they would a broken toilet: If there were no songs or roles for me, I would simply have to write them myself.

Writing for yourself is a violent act of self-reverence and can be a rescue operation that turns into a vocation. I am pretty sure we are all writers. If we can concoct character, we can imagine what that character would say, what situations that character might find themselves in, and get all that onto a page. In truth, it’s not so much a stretch of ability but rather, a stretch of desire. At the beginning, I had to fool myself into thinking I liked writing as much as I liked performing. I did that with field trips I labeled as “research,” with cool pens, with imaginary deadlines and dive bar gigs I was unprepared for. 

I developed an affinity for Blackwing pencils and started buying cheap burner, one-subject notebooks from Duane Reade. I took other writers to coffee and asked them about their process. I started practicing piano again. Pretty soon, I realized I wasn’t just able to be a continuation of another person’s idea, I had content in me all my own. Go figure. 

My fellow beloved performers: We are not walking vessels, y’all. We are imaginations with long, long legs. We are rigor incarnate and build our lives around a profound passion of doing that is not only a virtue but a superpower. Even if you don’t end up making a life out of your writing half, you can at least construct yourself a diving board. 

Be your own muse, be your own auteur. Be your own producer, director, and fan. I find the more behind-the-scenes jobs I learn to do (either by necessity or by curiosity), the more I understand what is possible in this big, beautiful medium of ours. The more complex and ambitious the show I’m making for myself, the more my performer grows to meet that spec. The writer hand stretches the performer, the performer hand pushes the writer—and at this stage, for me, they are not separate; they need each other.

I’ve been rotating these hats constantly now for 20 joyful years.  I am always a beginner with an ugly first draft and a dream to shine it up like a ruby. Do I feel like I can, with confidence, say that I’m anything other than that original performer? No (let that be our secret). 

But I have no problem referring to myself as a multihyphenate. In fact, it’s a point of pride. I’ve put in thousands of rigorous hours learning how to change these hats, and finding new ones to try on. And when I walk out onto that stage or sit down to watch a thing that I’ve made with that stubborn part of me who just invented her own job, I am tickled that I’ve exceeded my wildest dream. I DID find an auteur to write tasty roles for me in perpetuity: It was me.