This theater that we’re sitting in today is in my hometown. I’m performing this play in a couple of days and Dawn is producing it. It’s a fundraiser for my kids’ school. What’s so funny about this is that the first 10 or 12 years we performed this play in New York and all over the country, we didn’t have any kids. So it was just she and I traveling around the country, living in New York and LA. And now we have three kids. Two of those kids, Eloise and Axel, are going to introduce me on the night of the show in a couple of nights.
My 10-year-old Eloise and my 8-year-old Axel are going to get on stage and say, “Ladies and gentleman please turn off your cell phones. Foul language will be used by my dad so be aware. This is an NFL locker room. Needles will be used so if you’re squeamish, turn your head away.”
My KIDS are going to introduce me. When this play first began, I didn’t have kids. Now I’ve got three. That means A LOT. Think about that—16, 17 years. I want you to have that longevity. This play has employed me for all those years and really there’s no end in sight as to my employment having to do with this play.
I want you to think of your story like that because … I had no kids and I’m still doing the same damn play and now I have three kids. I rehearse just as hard today as I did back then. The play is harder to do because I’m 54 years old now. When I wrote this I was in my 30s. Now I’m in my mid 50s. It doesn’t get easier but this particular performance means a lot to me because it’s a fundraiser for kids. There is also this whole audience of my kids’ friends and their parents who don’t even know what I do. They see me around town and they go “Bo, what you do?” And I say, “Well, I speak and do a play.” And they’re like, “Okay.”
They don’t know what I do, but they’re going to be in this audience and some of their kids—those who can take the language. So a whole new audience gets to be inspired by “Runt of the Litter,” something that was created 16 years ago. So I’m really giving this performance my all. I’ve really gotten in shape and trained hard to get my body ready to do it.
People used to always ask Joe DiMaggio “Why do you play so hard on a Tuesday in Milwaukee?” And he would say, “Because somebody might be in that stadium who’s seeing me for the first time.”
Five or six hundred people are going to be seeing me, a lot of them for the first time. And I want them to turn to each other say, “Damn. Damn. That changes the way I see the world. That may be one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.”
I’d love for that to happen. But it can only happen if I give it my all.
I want you to give your all to whatever it is you choose to do in your life too.
