A few weeks ago, my friend Shauna sent a last-minute email to myself and a couple others. She was giving a talk that weekend and was hoping we would come over early the next morning to hear a draft and give some notes. I was flattered and also a bit floored. Shauna is the author of three books (her most recent one we'll be discussing here in the coming weeks). She gives talks and interviews all the time.

Why would a competent, confident…

It’s unusual to start a rehearsal stretching on the floor. And yet there were all eight of us as the director wove his way through the maze of actors sharing his thoughts for the scene we were about to create. It felt like we were in some pseudo, combined production of FAME and a boot camp reality series. But alas we had just begun rehearsing Shakespeare’s, The Comedy of Errors, at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in Chicago. 

The theatre…