All the world's a stage...

I should have been an actor.

Particularly a stage actor. I had forgotten until I spoke to the Halls Women's League last night how wonderful it is to bask in the warmth of an audience. I don't know how good I would be at it. But, I know I would love it.

It's funny. I remember watching Damon Patterson and a girl who's name is lost to time -- Allie something, maybe -- do a scene after dinner at a high school awards banquet. I was quite taken by it. I also remember a friend leaning over and saying, "I can see you doing that."

Couldn't stay asleep tonight (that seems to happen nearly every night anymore), so I finally quit tossing and turning and finished Alan Alda's book. He talks about the ups and downs of performing. His theory is that an actor has to reach a point in which you "care without caring." I think that makes a lot of sense and can be useful in many walks of life.

(I told you yesterday how much I always admired Alda. I used to want to be just like him. Funny, isn't it? Whatever late hour I get off work tonight, I'm going to light a fire and watch him and Ellen Burstyn in "Same Time, Next Year" if I can stay awake. I always watch that movie the night before Thanksgiving. Go figure. I'm nuts.)

What finally steered me away from any serious thoughts of thespianism (other than fears about earning a paycheck) was anxiety over learning lines. But, I was so taken by Damon's performance that I took a couple of years of drama in high school.

I love the play we did my sophomore year ("The Foreigner"). I didn't so much like the play we did my junior year. By my senior year, I'd fallen in love with journalism and dropped out of Denise Pennington's drama class to work on the school paper an extra semester. Don't have any regrets. As it turned out, I've made newspapers my life's work.

But I've never lost my love for live performance. One of my fondest memories is seeing Tom Selleck in a revival of "A Thousand Clowns" 10 days before 9/11 in New York. One of my goals for 2009 is to take time to catch as many local plays as possible.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll seek out more invitations like talking to the Women's League. The ham in me loves the applause, sure, but it's really more than that. Sometimes the performer connects -- really connects -- with the folks sitting out there in the crowd. You share a common moment and it makes you realize that one of the most important things in life happens when human beings relate to one another.

Kind of puts the best spin on Shakespeare's declaration that all the world's a stage.

'The Last Time I Felt Like This'

I used to think that no singer would haunt my dreams like Karen Carpenter.

Then came Alison Krauss. Then "Teardrops" and RobinElla. Then -- well, you get the idea.

But there is a special place reserved in the part of my heart forever in love with good music for Jane Olivor. Here, let me slide down a seat. You sit right there, get comfortable and I'll tell you the story.

Some time ago (15 years, I guess), while going through a stage wanting to be Alan Alda (don't ask), I watched a movie called "Same Time, Next Year." Starring Alda and Ellen Burstyn, the film follows a 25-year affair between two people who meet at the same quaint little cottage on the shores of the Pacific in California once a year. I'll tell you more about the movie sometime, but what's important here is the film's theme song, "The Last Time I Felt Like This," performed by the venerable Johnny Mathis and Olivor, she with the ethereal, haunting vocals.

The song is sentimental, but also beautiful, full of the naive bliss of love that sadly seems as antiquated today as leisure suits and 8-track tapes. Mathis and Olivor work magic as the harmony blends together. Somebody once compared it to two birds mating; as silly as that sounds, it's an apt description.

Olivor seemed on the brink of superstardom when she recorded that duet with Mathis nearly 30 years ago. She had a sweet recording contract with Columbia and was being compared favorably with Streisand and others.

But she swallowed a big dose of stage fright and couldn't adjust to the attention that came with an Oscar-nominated song and a concert tour with Mathis. Her husband's illness provided the perfect excuse. Jane Olivor disappeared.

They tell me she is singing again; Columbia has also remastered some of her late 70s/early 80s material. There are some gems buried here and there, including "The Best Side of Goodbye," a stunning reading of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Some Enchanted Evening," a live performance of a beautiful song called "Seasons" and mighty fine covers of Don McLean's "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)" and Neil Sedaka's underrated "Solitaire."

But it's that sweet three minute masterpiece with Johnny Mathis that has become the moment in Jane Olivor's career. I hear those opening piano notes and lose my heart awhile as it soars into the sky. I close my eyes and pretend that Olivor is singing just for me while I remember a face I haven't seen in many moons.

It's deja vu; I've been here before. When was it? Oh, yes. I remember now.

The last time I felt like this, I was falling in love...