WHAT I SAID WAS

… and you Googled my number and ended up here, it wasn’t me!

Some sketchy telemarketing company is masking their identity by getting my phone number to appear on your Caller ID.

Sorry this is happening. I’ve called my phone provider. They’re not helpful. Hopefully there will be a resolution.

Years ago I was on the subway when a mom and her son got on my car. She quickly ushered him to an empty seat and told him to sit down. He was maybe three or four years old with curly black hair and the most pinchable cheeks. He wore a puffy jacket that was swallowing him. The train started to move and he was having a blast trying to balance himself as he waddled towards the seat.

“Sit down,” the mom repeated. Her voice wasn’t strict or demanding. It was an option with a strong opinion.

He continued to stand. His small hands grasped the vertical poll in a death grip as the train rocked his tiny body in all directions. He looked like he had just learned how to walk yesterday, so the sensation of movement must have been invigorating.

I understood the thrill: Standing on the train is the closest to surfing most of us New Yorkers ever got. You’re not a real straphanger until you’re able to balance on the train with a coffee in one hand and a book in the other without actually touching the “straps.” You learn to use a wider stance in a slight plié position for stability. You learn how to sway ever-slightly back and forth as the train’s momentum shifts. Short folks like me pick up this skill quickly. The grab bars were always slightly out of reach and the stanchions were hot real estate especially during rush hour. Plus, do you know how many germs are on those things? Ew.

Turn, bump, brake, rumble, screech. Who needs the ocean when you have metal on tracks? Standing was more fun than necessity at this point for the toddler. Each time the train threatened to overpower him, his mom reached out to protect him from falling. He had a seat available to him, but the little man was determined.

“Enjoy your childhood while you can. You won’t always have a seat,” his mother said to him after a couple more stops. She sat down, holding out one arm to catch him, the other clutching his folded up stroller. “You’ll have a lifetime ahead to stand.”

A new wave of passengers boarded and formed a semi-circle around where he stood. He looked at them, then his mom with his big, innocent eyes.

“I don’t understand why kids want to grow up so quickly these days.”

Smiles of recognition formed on the faces of strangers who heard this. We all looked at the little guy. He took his hands off the pole and put them on her lap. She lifted him up and placed him in the seat next to her. He buried his face into the side of her coat, then quickly sat back up. He stared out the window at the blurry images as the train sped ahead.

I haven’t posted in more than a year, but checking in to say I’m still alive and thank you for subscribing/reading.

This blog used to be called “The Dirty Thirties” — a way to document my transition into for-real adulthood. I still have a couple of great years left in this decade, but I’ve come to realize that “age” is so limiting. Life is defined more so by experiences than a number.

How many of us have told ourselves, “I am not where I should be at this age.” Milestones — graduations, marriages, births, deaths, performances, travel, love, heartbreak, promotions, etc. — can occur at any moment. We should not be bound by societal expectations pressed upon us since birth ESPECIALLY ARTISTS. You do you, bro. (<— thanks, Kevin K.)

There’s too much to recap for the second half of 2016 through now, so I’ll just tell you what IS happening:
– I am back home in San Francisco and starting the new year cooking, exercising, reading, and creating more.
– I will be returning to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in May to begin rehearsals for the American premiere of SNOW IN MIDSUMMER (click here for more info).
– Speaking of milestones, I’m planning to put a ring on it later this year! Feel free to share your planning advice and your secrets to a long, loving marriage.

2018’s looking pretty eventful. Let’ do this!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdv7fXwA-4o/

This is important for you to know and for me to say: I am Will Dao. I am a gay, Asian American cisgender male raised Buddhist and broke.

At home, I grew up with a lot of older brothers so it was a sausage fest from day one. While they’ve since changed, my immediate and extended family picked on me intensely for being too feminine throughout most of my childhood and teenage years. I’ve been called “gay” for as long as I can remember and definitely not always in an endearing way. Outside my house, I was verbally and physically assaulted for being Asian in my predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood. As a a kid, I figured if I couldn’t hide my Asian-ness then god damn it, no one would ever find out that I was gay, too. If my family was that critical of me acting the way I did, what would strangers do? So I learned at a very, very young age how not to be me. I built myself a Mariah Carey-worthy walk-in closet that I could stay in forever. I became a caricature of what a kid might think a straight guy is: I learned to speak a little deeper, avoided overly “feminine” gestures, swaggered instead of strutted, nodded in agreement at how hot Paula Abdul was when my heart belonged to 4 out of the 5 New Kids on the Block. When family and friends wondered aloud if I was gay, I’d give them the answer I thought they wanted to hear: “NO.”

I learned to hide. To stay silent. To never draw attention to myself in public spaces ever for fear of getting insulted or worse, beat up or killed. I watch the news. I know what can happen.

I knew from an early age I was some sort of queer, but denied this through elementary school, through middle school, through high school, opened up a little bit in college, opened up a little bit more post-graduation, opened up a lot more when I moved to San Francisco where I met the love my life, and in what I thought was the ultimate act of self-acceptance, opened the whole fucking closet door and came out to my mom over a bowl of noodles this past Christmas at age 35. THIRTY. FIVE. You can’t be more out than that, right? Well…

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I have been with MGS for almost seven years now. He is an amazing man. He is the most generous, intelligent, and kind person I know. He’s spontaneous. He’s fun. He’s shameless. He’s loved me for who I am from Day One and has helped me become more open and honest to myself and in turn, everyone else around me. I cannot imagine life without him. I love him I love him I love him.

Just last Thursday or Friday, we were walking towards downtown Ashland, and he reached his arm out and looped it around mine. Instinctually, my whole body grew tense.

This has happened before. He would hold my hand or kiss me or say “I love you” out in the open and I would get nervous, look straight ahead, pull away, or walk as quickly as possible to our destination. Only when I’m sure we’re not being watched or when we’re walking in the dark or when we’re surrounded by close friends would I ever dare to show any sign of affection to him in public. But I had never spoken to him about my anxiety. I had never told him, “I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want to be insulted. I don’t want to get beat up. I don’t want to die for loving you.”

Instead this time, I brushed him off and told him, “Honey – I don’t like PDA.”

He wears his heart on his sleeve. I saw what those words did to him.

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Two days ago we learned about Orlando and the unraveling story of shooter Omar Mateen, a potentially closeted, gay man who purchased a ginormous, dangerous, lethal weapon COMPLETELY legally, and who targeted a gay Latino nightclub and its patrons to slaughter. For the next day and a half after the incident, I felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Was it the sheer number of people killed? Was it because they were gay? Was it because they were so tragically murdered in a location that’s supposed to be a safe space for LGBTQ of color?

I decided to attend a vigil organized by my amazing colleagues at OSF. MGS, my friend and cast mate PT, and I walked over together from a fried chicken dinner we all attended. It takes a lot for me to walk away from fried chicken and booze, but I needed to be around other LGBTQ and allies at that moment. There was a large crowd assembled on the Bricks around the Green Show stage. As we settled in our spots for the tail end of CHY’s moving cover of “Man in the Mirror,” I scanned the crowd. Lots of hugging, lots of holding hands. I stood with my hands in my pockets and put on my hat. I didn’t want to be noticed.

TB took to the stage. He opened with a story about a train ride he took where he spotted a straight, cisgendered couple doing what straight, cisgendered people do without a second thought: publicly flaunt the privilege of public affection. In contrast were two males sitting across from him, staring straight ahead, with a bag between them. Nothing special except that beneath the bag, they were holding one another’s hands clandestinely.

That was the trigger. The story hit me hard. Tears poured out. As much as I didn’t want us to be, we had become that couple. This melancholia I was feeling was actually a deep feeling of shame, even as an “out” gay man. It was a feeling of regret for not walking down the street proudly with MGS in my arms. It was the pain of his reaction when I brushed him aside.It was guilt for the awful things I said and did as a closeted man because I hated myself so much that I treated others like jerks. It was the burden of fearing that at any moment, some asshole who doesn’t give a fuck about me, who only sees a faggot homosexual, can kill me because of one piece of my identity that he — and it’s most often and likely HE — dislikes. It was feeling like I wasn’t doing enough for the LGBTQ community, not being as vocal for them as I have been for the APA community, not speaking out against all the hate crimes that have been targeted at us, especially as of late.

It’s said we are most apathetic when we don’t have a personal investment in a situation that will incite us into action. I am writing this entry in a very public forum so you know who I really am and to get you personally invested.

Orlando has been San Francisco has been New York could be anywhere could be MGS could be me. If you love me, help me. I need my family and friends to stand with me so that I am not alone because I am so so so tired and scared and angry. So please help me. I’m especially addressing you straight, cisgendered people, especially if you’re white, who have it so fucking easy you don’t even know:

Speak out against homophobia and against racism, write your representatives to enact stricter gun control laws NOW, love your kids, family, and friends for who they are, teach your children not to be assholes. Help me build a world where my nieces and nephews, your kids, and my children don’t have to live with hate, fear, shame, and repression. It sucks. Whatever beautiful beings they grow into, I want them to be happy about who they are and live openly without worry about being hated or harmed for whatever insane reason.

Help me, PLEASE. Help me, NOW.

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The vigil continued with more poetry, a candle lighting ceremony, and ended with CHY and CC singing, “True Colors.”

And I’ll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow

The song ended and the crowd blew out their candles. We all turned to hug our neighbors. I felt a release. Love is a strong antidote and even stronger ammunition. MGS and I walked home, my hand in his out in the open.

 

“As an Asian kid, it feels like the world tells me to be weak, seeing Vietgone however made me feel strong.”

That was an email that Qui Nguyen, the playwright of VIETGONE, received.

I bawled.

“As an Asian kid, it feels like the world tells me to be weak…”

Adults are just saggier versions of their kid-selves. I am forever that kid who got harassed on the daily in my hood with ching-chong nonsense; called Bruce Lee for lack of any other options; and picked on for looking the way I did — which was Asian.

School wasn’t any better, and if anything, worse. Instead of the blatant, give-no-shit New Yorker street racism I faced on home turf, school consisted of a series of micro-aggressions that left me feeling like a pretty worthless student. I sucked at all that I was supposed to excel at which was math and science — and really academics in general — and the teachers and students let me know with their side-eye and passive aggressive comments.

But I had theater.

My bowl cut and I walked into auditions for ONCE UPON A MATTRESS in eighth grade not because I wanted to act, but because I wanted to sing. My brothers were varsity athletes. I had none of that talent, but I could SANG. I had so much fun in my tights as Sir Harry, that I decided the next year to audition for the high school musical: ANYTHING GOES. More than a few jaws dropped, mine the lowest, when the cast list was posted and my name was next to BILLY CROCKER. The short, awkward, Chinese kid was cast as the romantic lead that’s traditionally played by a white dude who in the play pretends to be a Chinese dude. Meta much?

Lin-Manuel Miranda said, “And I’ve said this a million times, but it bears repeating: high school’s the ONE CHANCE YOU GET, as an actor, to play any role you want, before the world tells you what ‘type’ you are. The audience is going to suspend disbelief: they’re there to see their kids, whom they already love, in a play. Honor that sacred time as educators, and use it change their lives. You’ll be glad you did.”

I think it was with ANYTHING GOES that my mantra in life became, “Don’t Suck. Don’t be a disgrace.” Just kidding. That’s every Asian kids mantra from day one.  Point being, I wanted to rep my people – the poor, the short, the Asian – and if I sucked, I would let down entire communities. You cannot fuck up this role in a classic musical theater show. CANNOT. I played it, I played it well, I brought truth to Billy without falling into too many racist cliches (I think?), and the show was awesome. I rocked that white dude. And it rubbed off on me offstage: I was a little more confident, a little more outgoing, a little sexier. I don’t fit into a box. I’m not traditional so don’t try to cast me traditionally. Did people see me differently? Who cares. I felt good and doing theater pulled me out of depression and made me feel part of something greater.

But I’m way beyond high school now and let’s just say I haven’t booked many Billy Crockers since, BUT the roles I am getting are equally and maybe even more satisfying: Aidan, Jian Wan, and now, Nhan and Khue. People that are meant to look like me. Multi-dimensional Asian characters that cannot be pigeon-holed, whose stories we’re finally seeing on the American stage. Characters that people of color can relate to on a deeper, cultural, historical, and personal level. There was a time when I couldn’t play these roles because they straight up weren’t available, but now, playwrights — Asian American or otherwise — are bringing our voices and our faces onstage.

I struggle with this business on the daily. I’m constantly thinking, “What am I doing with my life? Is this sustainable? How is this helping the world AT ALL?” When kids get shot at school by mass murdering gun fanatics, when bombs are being dropped on innocent lives, when tap water is knowingly allowed to be tainted with lead, when earthquakes kill hundreds, when it’s an election year, when homeless camps get bigger off the 101 in SF, when people think reverse racism is a thing, when diseases are ignored and allowed to decimate communities, when women don’t have rights to make decisions about their own bodies, when religious zealots ruin it for everyone, when a transgender person can’t use the bathroom, when Black Lives Matter is questioned… WHAT AM I DOING OF VALUE?!

When we get emails like the one Qui received, it reminds me that theater is of TREMENDOUS value. A great piece of theater can make us think and act upon all of those issues. It’s a catalyst, a bacteria that infects our soul and the only way to cure it is to take ACTION. Theater can and does change lives and empower people. Why did I ever doubt that when theater changed MY life in the most wonderful way, too?!  I dream of winning the EGOT, but hearing that our work has affected someone in such a positive way trumps all that metal.

“… seeing Vietgone however made me feel strong.”

THAT’S why we do what we do.