"Dance 10, Looks 3"

I want to sing, to perform.  I want to be the center of attention and more importantly, I want to be good at it. 

So why don't I?  What it really comes down to is that while I am great at stealing the spotlight and I can be entertaining,  I am female and I am in my 40s.  Performance venues are mostly about looks, youth, and beauty.  I'm a decent to good singer.  I need to rehearse and know my song well, but I know I have chops.  But, my looks, well they aren't anything to write home about.  I have a few favorable attributes, but no one looks at me and thinks "Wow, what a beauty, get that woman on stage."

Women like Barbara Streisand and Bette Midler have overcome being unconventional in their looks; they are also reincarnated Sirens.  It doesn't matter how reliable, how hard I work, how much I try, my voice isn't that stellar, my charisma isn't that engaging.  There is always going to be a woman who is prettier with more charisma.  Provided she can sing passably, someone will ask her to perform.  Someone once told me that was all BS, I just didn't want it badly enough.  They were right, I'd like to perform, but not so much that I want to be told over and over that I am fat, that I am not pretty, I'm old and that my voice isn't good enough to compensate for my looks.  I get enough of that day to day, thank you very much.  (The person who told me I didn't want it enough was gorgeous and quite a performer.)   

When it comes to performing, I really wish I were male.  A man who has a good voice doesn't have to be all that great looking.  If he has a modicum of stage presence, a decent voice and is willing to get up there, directors will salivate for the chance, because a guy...in the theater!  I watched a fellow (who did have an amazing voice) miss rehearsal, not know his lines and yet he was still allowed to perform.  Further, I'll bet he will be invited back.

I've been given the chance to perform and I blew it.  I wasn't rehearsed, I didn't know the song that well and it's hard to have presence when you are struggling for the lines.  It was enough to put me off asking, because it seems performance charisma is one of those things you have or you don't.  I have many enviable talents and I I know that not being able to do this thing shouldn't matter.  There are times when I just wonder what it would be like to get to do things because I have worked hard and earned it and not watch someone else do it because they have a pretty face.

If that makes me seem bitter, well I guess I am.  But hey, that's what I am doing here, writing this stuff out and deconstructing it.