We All Look Alike, Part 1

Last week, at a theater workshop, I complimented an actor for doing a great job in a scene. He stared at me for a moment, then said, "I know you."

The actor insisted that he had worked with me before. I agreed, we had both been at the workshop in the spring, but he remembered playing a part for me in a reading. He said the name of the director -- I didn't recognize it -- and recalled that it had happened ten years ago. I was a little embarrassed to admit that I would have been in high school at the time. Instead, I said that we would figure it out.

Yesterday, I pressed him on the matter, and I asked him the name of the director again. When I said that I didn't know the name, he thought for a moment, and then started to question himself. The playwright had been blind... and apparently, I looked just like him.

It never ceases to amaze me how often that kind of thing happens. There's always the temptation to say, "Hey, I'm the blind guy: I'm supposed to mix people up." But there are reasons for it, and I'll get into those in future stories of mistaken identity.