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A S P E C I A L E S S AY C O N T R I B U T I O N B Y J O Y C E O ’ C O N N O R
The fierce playwright John Belluso wrote that we humans constantly exchange slivers of ourselves at
each encounter, as one invisible bit of our essence moves to the other. In turn, a tiny bit of them becomes
part of us. After twenty-five years of Signature “slivering” I must now be an entirely new being.
I carry bits of everyone, dead and alive, known to me and not,
who has participated in any way at Signature - audience, back
of house, front of house, performer, donor, box office, intern,
board member, staff, designer, maintenance, security, book
store, critic, café - and they all carry slivers of me. If I take it
further, all these people have incorporated me into them and
have passed some of my original sliver onto others who will
pass it on again. This means I must be everywhere by now
and will continue to be everywhere in the future.
I was completely shattered into little slivers at my first encounter with Jim Houghton. We were to be classmates at Southern
Methodist University’s graduate acting conservatory, then great
friends, then lovers, then wife and husband, then artistic collaborators, then parents, then disability advocates, then, suddenly,
nearly thirty years married. Back then we talked passionately
of visions and dreams. We still do. I remember Horton Foote
in his late eighties saying he was surprised to see an old man
when he looked into the mirror. I am starting to get it.
Just married, Jim and I came to New York to begin our Great
Theatre Quest. He was an actor/waiter. I was an actor/temp,
and we were both committed to being a part of something
bigger than us. We dreamt of quitting our day jobs. On his
thirtieth birthday, Jim sat up nearly all night in our Salvation
Army chair pondering his life. When he was cast as Harlan in
Romulus Linney’s Heathen Valley, Jim came to me with copies
of Romulus’s many plays and asked, “Am I crazy? This guy is
copying his own programs. What if I could do his plays?”
“Yes. You are crazy,” I answered. “Do it.” I wasn’t sure at
all what he intended but I could see his passion and
he had always said the same to me: “Do it.”
The next thing I knew there was an answering
machine in the kitchen closet of our tenement
apartment. “Welcome to the Signature Theatre
Box Office,” blared Jim’s recorded voice at each
occasional call. I sewed the banner with the
Signature logo and Jim fashioned a broomstick and
duct tape to fasten it to the fire escape