By Emily Cordes
We thespians
are resilient
by design
and by necessity:
Acrobats in stage blacks
Working magic in the dark
Ballet masters
Poised to pivot
Knowing every
back-forth two-step
is a cha-cha
not disaster
(And material for the script)
So if we fall
We’ll ad lib,
say “yes, and—”
Nursing blistered feet
and bruised hearts
as we tumble
ever onward,
each stumble
integrated
in the dance.
Through wars, plagues, and revolutions
Always finding new solutions
We’ll edit, cut,
reshuffle a stacked deck
We travel like the roustabouts
our roots put down on fairgrounds,
forever tearing down
and mounting tents.
Magnificence for one night only,
stakes raised high
and razed as quickly;
flying, roosting
with the changing weather.
We know the road to glory’s
like a trip through Monte Carlo,
Full of dicey hairpin turns
And roulette spins
That could hit jackpots
Or send you careening
like Grace Kelly,
‘Cause even starlets fall
And princesses
can spin out
on the cliffs.
So when we lose the tosses
We’ll cash chips
And cut our losses
Go back to one,
Our rally song “PLOT TWIST!”
We’ll laugh and cringe and cry;
Reset, reshoot, rewrite
And start again…
‘Cause baby,
that’s the biz.
Emily Cordes is a Brooklyn, NY-based actress, writer, theatre-maker, and arts marketer/fundraiser. She hails from Pittsburgh, PA and is a graduate of Smith College and Columbia University. She has performed in various plays, films, and web productions throughout the tri-state area, and co-created devised theatre with such groups as No Dominion Theatre Company and The Laboratory of Soul. As a founding member of the feminist theatre group Tapestry Collective, she develops, produces, and performs in original devised plays, most recently 2022's "#SoSadSoSexy," about the fetishization of mentally ill women. Her poetry collections "Queen of Swords" (2023) and "Armful of Poppies" (2021) were published by Read or Green Books, and she performs spoken word live in NYC and on Zoom screens across the country and globe. IG: @postmodern.psyche; http://bit.ly/EmilyCordes.
