But Doug was where my heart lay. And he loved me. Once there was one perfect technician in our class—everytwas crossed andidotted. I’ll always remember what Doug said about me, though, while referencing this dancing technician: “Christina is not thebesttechnician, but she’s the only person I want to watch in class.” I still hold those words close.
I wasn’t a technician and was never fully a ballerina either, but I knew how to move, and I like to think that my lines were beautiful and my reach expressive. I went to Doug’s class at Studio F when I was feeling sad and wanted to be happier, or sad and wanted to be sadder, or happy and wanted to be happier. There I was able to release the pain I was feeling in my life. I was there for myself and for my heart, for my soul, for my spirit.
I did that for thirty years with this man, and with Alex.
Every movement Doug made expressed his soul, and that’s what I wanted to replicate in my own dancing. He listened to every tick, every boom, every sound, every breath of the music, and danced accordingly. There was so much crying in that class, and it was never performative, not once. It was real and true.
Some nights, after years of building a friendship, we’d go to his house after class to drink red wine and watchSo You Think You Can Dance.Once the show was over, we would dance again for hours, even though we’d already had a three-hour class.
Doug’s dance room was part of his carpeted living room, and we would freestyle and do floor work. I would sometimes look down to find that the entire top of my foot was bleeding from the carpet, but I didn’t care.
I still have scars on my feet from those nights. I loved being around that bunch of dancers, around Doug. I love dancers. I love their whole world. It is my world.
Or was.
I was a damn good dancer. Damn good. I wasn’t a technician, but yes, I think I could dance.
As for Doug, well, he knew chronic pain, too. When you dance all day, every day, and teach conventions all over the world, you’re going to hurt everywhere. As he got older, his pain only grew.
One day I got a voicemail from him.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m doing so good. Can’t wait to see you. I miss you and can’t wait to see Sadie.”
Sadie too had loved his classes. I remember picking her up from her first lyrical class, and she said, “Mom, I know what you’ve been talking about, and I know what Doug has been talking about. I almost cried while I was dancing.”
I texted Doug immediately: “Shit, well done.”
I listened to his voicemail and made a mental note to call him. But before I got the chance, a friend texted me, “Have you talked to Doug?” After I texted no, he texted back, “He’s dead.”
I lost it. I didn’t stop crying for a week.
I still have his last voicemail, the call I never got to return. I keep saving it so I don’t lose it. But I will never return it, never tell him once again how much that reach expresses something fundamental about me, something deep in my soul that can only be touched by dance.
Dance was everything to me, and the chance to dance on Broadway? I could not let this pass me by.
Every single detail of what happened next is burned into my mind because it was the most devastating thing I’ve ever been through—and yes, I can say that even knowing everythingelseI’ve been through.
It is Chicago, March 5, 2005. I have auditioned and been offered the role of a lifetime, and now I am in the Windy City preparing for previews before heading to Broadway.
It is the first night of previews. My mom has flown in, my sister, and my best friend, too. My family who live in the Midwest are all there. Before the show, I am standing onstage behind the curtain with everyone in the cast—usually we do funny things to get us loose and then circle up. This night, though, I simply say, “Guys, tonight is really important to me. My whole family is here.” They understand.
Then I’m standing stage right in the wings while the cast does “Big Spender,” one of the few numbers Charity Hope Valentine is not in. My job is to run out near the end and twirl around a lamppost in the center of the stage. At some point in the scene, I have to fall into a lake—which is just a big hole in the stage where the stagemanager squirts me with water. I am wearing difficult, clunky shoes, not my dance shoes, because regular dance shoes would get ruined. I come back up and then go back down again, more water, back up. The secrets of live theater, folks!
I come out onto the stage to do my part, the music starts, I run to the lamppost, take a step, and my heel goes off to the side and…
SNAP!
That is a bone.
Oh my god.
I’m alone on the stage. And my first line?
“You ever have one of those days?”
I look down, and my foot is coming out of the shoe sideways. My friend Tyler Hanes, who plays Charlie, comes out and I’m dancing around him while internally flipping out. I know something is seriously wrong. Tyler pushes me into the “lake,” where I find Beverly Jenkins—who is, by the way, one of the few stage managers to ever get an honorary Tony Award—waiting there with the water bottle, ready to drench me.
“Beverly, I broke my foot,” I whisper. She looks aghast, squirts me nonetheless, and up I go, back onstage. Stage business ensues. Then I go back down.
