Few people would expect a calm Harvard graduate, New York Times best-selling author, and editor of The Atlantic to have anxiety about getting fired from his job, but Scott Stossel does. Aside from feeling anxious about completing a task for work on time, Stossel is anxious about most everything: vomiting, fainting, speaking in public, flying, germs, cheese and more. On the outside, people see him as cool and collected, but his inside emotions are burning. At his own wedding he was so anxious that sweat penetrated through his clothes as he shook severely. Since the age of 7, the now 45-year-old journalist has been fighting anxiety with a mix of antidotes, including numerous medications, alcohol, a variety of therapies, meditation, yoga and praying. Most have worked little to none.
Stossel’s therapist, who has specialized in anxiety for 40 years, defines anxiety as “apprehension about future suffering.” The author’s research on anxiety reveals that we all have it to some degree, and one in five of us suffer from an anxiety disorder. In his New York Times best-selling book “My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind,” the journalist shares his personal experiences with the disorder (some are quite funny), as well as the history and science of it.
Stossel will be speaking Sunday, March 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Marcus Jewish Community Center Atlanta, MJCCA. My Q&A with him is below. If you’d like one or two free tickets to the event, please leave a comment below as I will be giving away two pairs of tickets to the first two people who leave a comment.
SA: You’re anxious about public speaking, yet you do it a lot. What prompts you to keep speaking in public even though you are so anxious about it?
SS: Partly self-masochism. The main reason is I want people to find out about the book, to buy it and learn about it and hopefully benefit from it. It’s also therapeutic as a protracted form of exposure therapy, which is how you’re supposed to treat phobias and anxiety, by indirectly confronting yourself with the thing that you really fear. Since the hardcover came out a year ago, I have been doing it (speaking publicly) on and off for a year, and it has gotten easier over time. Which isn’t to say that it’s always easy. And I medicate.
SA: How does that affect your writing when you medicate?
SS: It doesn’t affect it well. I couldn’t go do an event, if it was a big event, and then immediately go back to my desk and write with any crispness or clarity or much coherence. I kinda need to take a nap first. It’s not ideal in that respect.
SA: What about on a normal day like today, you still have to take medication don’t you?
SS: Yeah, but it’s not much most of the time. By not having to take a bunch of benzodiazepines like Xanax, I’m usually fine to work.
SA: What is it like when you interview a subject? Do you still feel that anxiety then or do you feel like “I’m not on display, you are”?
SS: It’s unpredictable. I definitely feel less anxiety in that situation. There are times when I don’t feel any more (anxious) than the normal person would. Then there are times when it will spring up on me unexpectedly and pretty bad, but by and large it’s a lot less on average than having to publicly perform on stage.
SA: You wrote in your article in The Atlantic that even reading a book gives you anxiety? What is it about reading, something that you do all alone, that makes you feel anxious?
SS: I don’t think it’s specifically that reading makes me anxious. What I was trying to say is that these panic attacks can suddenly come out of nowhere (while I’m) doing any old thing. Reading, actually, is not something that makes me particularly anxious. There are moments when anxiety creeps up on me. If I were to succumb to an anxiety attack while reading it would probably be either because the content in the book triggered anxious thoughts or because I was starting to feel physically unwell for some completely other reason. I’ll get hit with anxiety at all times doing anything, but reading is not particularly anxiety producing. In fact, it’s one of the least anxiety producing things.
SA: What has been the biggest help for your anxiety?
SS: Medication for sure, but aside from that, certain deep breathing techniques. Mindfulness meditation to calm yourself down. Cognitive behavioral therapy didn’t work. When I did exposure therapy undergirded by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety Disorders for my emetophobia (the fear of vomiting, which he hasn’t done since 1977), it focused on trying to reframe your cognition, or change you thought patterns. It’s trying to break maladaptive habits or thoughts in order to see things in a less fearful way, which has been effective with public speaking phobias. It hasn’t cured me but it has helped.
SA: What do you do now other than medication and meditation to appease it? Are there other things you do to calm yourself down?
SS: That’s mainly it. I’m still in psychotherapy with Dr. W. (his therapist who has specialized in treating anxiety for 40 years).
SA: Do you even feel anxiety when you talk to someone like me, somebody who doesn’t know you but is asking questions?
SS: Sure, as I say it is sort of unpredictable. It has a lot to do with certain factors that are predictable, like Have I gotten enough sleep? Have I gotten exercise? Or if I drink too much caffeine. Sometimes it’s totally unpredictable and I don’t know why sometimes it’s no problem at all, and other times things can be either mildly or overwhelmingly anxiety producing.
SA: If I know that I’m going to be talking to someone who has anxiety, what is the best way for me to go about talking with that person to make them feel OK with me? Is there anything you could recommend that I and others do?
SS: I think the answer is no, because I think – speaking only for myself, and I think probably for other people – you don’t want to feel like you’re being treated any differently or with kid gloves, or certainly patronizingly or anything like that. In the throes of an anxious attack some of the things you don’t want to say are “calm down” or “just get over it.” It’s not so easy or we would. I think the way is to interact normally with people. Stay in the moment with them. If you’re giving them special treatment, it won’t necessarily help them get cured. On the other hand, being gentle and kind is always a good thing for anyone who is in distress.
SA: In the first chapter of your book, you wrote: “I am buffeted by worry: about my health and my family members’ health; about finances; about work; about the rattle in my car and the dripping in my basement; about the encroachment of old age and the inevitability of death; about everything and nothing.”
It reminded me of Woody Allen, and you’ve been compared to him before. I wonder if you’ve ever thought about doing a comedy routine or writing a play about this?
SS: I don’t think I’d ever do a one-man comedy show because that would provoke all my worse anxiety, even if I were to get up there and be funny. On the other hand, the book has been adapted, the theatrical rights of the book have been acquired by Second City improv theater group out of Chicago. They are working on an outline that another writer and I worked on and possibly turning that into a stage production. Who knows if it’ll actually get off the ground. It’s been fun thinking about it and working on it. I wouldn’t be appearing in it. There would be someone else playing me. That would be the idea.
SA: I hope that whatever Second City does with it, it is something that can be shared with many people, not just in Chicago but everywhere.
SS: Thank you. I share that hope and I hope you’re right.
Click here to see excerpts from the book in The Atlantic.
Bess Winebarger, Luke Davis, Katherine Burnette, Jordan Harris
Jerry’s Habima Theatre, Georgia’s only theatrical company directed and produced by professionals and featuring actors with special needs, will celebrate season 22 this month with Disney’s “Aladdin, Jr.”
Together with local professional actors from the community, Jerry’s Habima Theatre performers (ages 18+) present Broadway musicals. This year the cast will introduce the community to Aladdin, Jasmine, Iago, Jafar, the Genie, and more in a musical filled with magic, mayhem and flying carpet rides.
Jerry’s Habima Theatre, a program of the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MJCCA), was the 2007 recipient of the Spirit of Suzi Bass Award for its long-term and consistent contribution to professionalism in Atlanta. All Habima productions are held at the MJCCA’s Morris & Rae Frank Theatre, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody.
Directed by the theater’s new director, Heidi Cline McKerly, and choreographed by her husband, Jeff McKerley, “Aladdin Jr.” will run from February 26 – March 8. To purchase tickets, call 678.812.4002, or visit www.atlantajcc.org.
Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Sarah Charles Lewis; Photo by Greg Mooney.
“Tuck Everlasting” may not be the type of show you’d expect to like–I sure didn’t– but almost everything about this musical at the Alliance Theatre is fantastic.
Based on the fantasy children’s novel of the same name by Nattalie Babbit, “Tuck Everlasting” reminds us why the fountain of youth is not all it’s cracked up to be and how we and our progeny all come back full circle from where we started. Sounds simple, but it’s not. The characters are rich and complex, and the actors who play them make fantasy believable. Winnie (Sarah Charles Lewis), the 11-year-old who the story revolves around, acts, sings, dances and tumbles so proficiently, you’d think she had come from Broadway. She and an ensemble member, who looks to be at least four years younger (Marco Schittone), both refrain from such stereotypical sing-songy line readings so many child actors are wont to do.
The play opens with a song and dance from a period of more than 100 years ago, featuring the marriage of Mae (Carolee Carmello) and Angus (Michael Park), who claim they hope to gaze into each other’s eyes for evermore. The scene is bold and riveting, and Carmello’s voice and acting shine. This is the moment when I know this show is going to be good.
However, all is not perfect. About mid-way through the first act, the plot slows down, and the story seems to drag for about two songs, but the scenes pick back up before the end of Act 1 and the story never slows down again.
Although all the performers hold their own, the unctuous, slimy character the “Man in the Yellow Suit” (Terrance Mann) is the biggest joy to watch with his surprising moves: offering a limp handshake to the town’s constable (Fred Applegate), a silly, happy dance at the fair and a cock of his fingers as if he’s pulling a trigger on his enemies.
Whether you’ve read the book or seen one of the two films that have been made about it, the “Tuck Everlasting” to experience is the one now playing at the Alliance Theatre.
Walt Spangler’s set puts you right into the woods, where massive trees change from brown to green, and onto a misty lake with a rowboat swirling around it as Angus and Winnie go fishing.
Book by Claudia Shear, music by Chris Miller, lyrics by Nathan Tysen, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, “Tuck Everlasting” runs through Feb. 22 on the main stage at the Alliance Theatre.
Cast:
Brad Anderson — Ensemble
Julie Barnes — Ensemble
Brad Bradley — Ensemble
Josh Brook — Ensemble
Deanna Doyle — Ensemble
Shannon Eubanks — Nana
KC Fredericks — Ensemble
Lisa Gajda — Ensemble
Jessica Lee Goldyn — Ensemble
Neil Haskell — Ensemble
Liza Jaine — Betsy Foster
Andrew Keenan-Bolger — Jesse Tuck
Jane Labanz — Ensemble
Robert Lenzi — Miles Tuck
Curtis Schroeger — Ensemble
Ben Silver — Ensemble
Michael Warrella — Hugo
Wyatt Fenner, Galen Crawley, Louis Gregory. Photo by BreeAnne Clowdus.
“Bad Jews” at Actor’s Express isn’t bad, but it’s not getting my vote for good. One person who saw it on opening night said, “It was high school acting.” Another said he liked it and “was moved to tears.”
Here’s a link to the New York Times review of the play when it was first produced at the Roundabout Theater in 2012. On that link you can watch a clip from that production. The actress in the clip made me laugh but not the one I saw Saturday night.
Being a Jew, watching the play at Actor’s Express, I could certainly relate to the text and the ways both of the main characters felt about being Jewish. To Liam (Wyatt Fenner), it’s not important to preserve the Jewish religion or the culture. To his cousin Daphne (Galen Crawley), it’s extremely important. Both characters were spewing a lot of vindictive words and emotions, but neither I nor my companion — who is also Jewish — felt any emotion for the characters or the play. But apparently, a lot of other people like it. Since its opening in New York, “Bad Jews” has become the third most produced play in the country, according to Variety Magazine..
Written by Joshua Harmon, directed by Freddie Ashley, “Bad Jews” plays at Actor’s Express through Feb. 22.
Cast:
Meldoy – Rachel De-Julio
Joseph – Louis Gregory
The Bonaventure Quartet, which plays at the MJCCA Sunday, began as an acoustic trio obsessed with the music of Django Reinhardt. When Charles Williams began writing songs in the gypsy jazz style of Django, mixed in with contemporary influences like Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, the band began to have it’s own unique flavor. Creative Loafing named their CD, The Secret Seduction of the Grand Pompadour “…one of the ‘Best 100 Albums from Atlanta in the first decade of the new millennium’”.
The Bonaventure Quartet has been performing around Atlanta since 2000 and has recorded four CDs in all: Blue Rendezvous, Songs from Trattoria de Cellina, The Secret Seduction of the Grand Pompadourand their latest, Lost and Found at the Clermont Lounge. In concert, the lineup ranges from four players all the way up to nine. For this performance, the Quartet will feature Amy Pike on vocals, Charles Williams and Dan Coy on guitars, Don Erdman on clarinet and sax, Mark Bynum on bass and Gabe Grantiz on accordion.
AJC said of the Bonaventure Quartet, “With the sultry, silky voice of former Lost Continentals’ Amy Pike and the gypsy jazz guitar of Charles Williams, Bonaventure is a marvelous melting pot. They add Southern sass to the smoky jazz of Parisian cabarets…”
The Bonaventure Quartet plays Sunday, Jan. 25 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at MJCCA-Zaban Park.
Winner of the 2012 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Choreography, “Newsies” hits the Fox Theatre this week.
Based on the New York City Newsboys Strike of 1899 and the 1992 American musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Pictures, “Newsies” ran for more than two years on Broadway.
It’s 1899, and a group of mostly homeless and orphaned boys live together and sell newspapers for their livelihood. After the publisher increases the cost of the papers to the boys, they go on strike and become the news.
The Chicago Tribune said of the national tour, “This is a stellar tour, replete with all the scenery from New York, which displays itself very nicely in the Oriental Theatre — looking flashier, actually, than it did back at the more cramped Nederlander Theatre in New York. The principals are decent.”
In its review of the Broadway show, the New York Times said, “Yes, what’s being marketed is Urchin Appeal. You remember urchins, right? They’re those plucky, resourceful ragamuffins — preferably orphans — whom America once embraced in movies like the Dead End Kids and Bowery Boys series and musicals like ‘Oliver!’ and ‘Annie.’ ”
Music is by Alan Menken, who scored “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “Pocahontas,” which each won him two Academy Awards. Lyrics by Jack Feldman, and book by Harvey Fierstein, “Newsies” plays at the Fox Theatre Jan. 20-25.
You might want to see Rain Pryor’s show “Fried Chicken & Latkes” just because she’s the daughter of one of the greatest comics of all time, Richard Pryor. Then again, you may have read the rave reviews in the New York Times, which said, “There are many dimensions to this robust, ebullient performer, all evident in this trim production, which sails by in an effervescent 70 minutes.”
Both of those reasons are good enough for me. Rain, who grew up with a black father and a Jewish mother, recounts tales of her life and the characters in them in her one-woman show, which ran for more than a year off Broadway. The MJCCA, in partnership with Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company, presents “Fried Chicken & Latkes” this Thursday through Saturday. The show in Atlanta runs approximately two hours. To purchase tickets call 877-725-8849.
Actor Ginna Hoben (video above features her, not the actress starring in this production at the Aurora Theatre) has created a cute script with “The 12 Dates of Christmas,” forget that it drags the last 10 minutes. An actress and writer, Hoben, has performed in New York and around the country, and probably has a better feel for this script than the actress, Jaclyn Hoffman, playing the role at Aurora. She’s not bad. She’s just often not believable.
I have a feeling I would have liked this one-woman show a lot more had she, or an actress just as talented, performed the role of a young actress whose discovers while watching the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade on TV and sees her fiancé smooching with another woman. So goes that relationship.
We follow Mary (Jaclyn Hoffman) through her breakup and her dates with 12 men in the following 12 months.
I love the premise and the characters in the show. Jaclyn Hoffman is a delight while portraying some of the other characters, her mother, her aunt and some of the dates. As Mary, however, there’s a lot of overacting and talking at the audience rather than to them.
“The 12 Dates of Christmas” ran through Dec. 21 at the Aurora Theatre. Because of my hectic work schedule, I am sorely lacking in getting this review published, but you didn’t miss a thing.
Adapted from Langston Hughes’s 1961 play first performed on Broadway in 1961, “Black Nativity” tells the classic Nativity story of the birth and praise for the baby Jesus. The casts consists of some of Atlanta’s finest Gospel singers and wonderful dancers–most notably Bree Buxton and Veronica Johnson, who plays Mary. You’ll hear some soulful and gospel renditions of classic Christmas tunes as well as those created for the play.
Starring Margo Moorer, directed and produced by Robert John Connor, choreographed by Dawn Axam “Black Nativity” runs through Dec. 21 at the Southwest Arts Center.
ACTORS / SINGERS
Margo Moorer | Q Parker | Zebulon Ellis | Latrice Pace | Dathan Thigpen
Brandin Jay | Andrea Connor | Maiesha McQueen | Alexis Hollins
Sara Von Zine Davis | Neil Taffe | Kelsie Broughton | Chris Hagan
Adrianna Glover | Benjamin Moore | Alex Lattimore | Adrianna Blackburn
Art Bright | Setia Freeman | LaKendra Fulbright | Kiaya Hamilton
DANCERS
Stephan Reynolds | Veronica Johnson | Jelani Jones | Alicia Nicole Thompson
Dayzsa Gartrell | Shoccara Marcus | Kennedy Milan Bright | Debõrah Hughes
Leo White | Markquise Davis | Bree Buxton | Justin Daniels
