During the audition for this seemingly innocent 3rd grade production of Hansel and Gretel, out of nowhere, a force rose from deep within my diaphragm, as I let loose a blood-curdling scream that horrified my classmates and caused our teacher Mrs. Swan to instantly give me the part as the evil witch. it launched my career.

I’m not sure why as an 8-year old kid growing up in white-bread, middle-class suburbia I would choose to be a male witch, but it clearly revealed a morbid attraction for the dark and the subversive.

And so the story goes: during the evening performance, I made a secret, diabolical pact with Mrs. Swan. during my flight from the stage through the audience wielding my broom (yes, I was breaking the 4th wall way back then), scaring the daylights out of sobbing kids sitting in the front row, I came up from behind  Mrs. Caldwell, who was busily conducting the chorus, and after casting a hexing spell, I quickly turned around and struck that poor woman – with her schoolmarmish, neatly tied bun – on the behind three times (to be exact) with my broom.

My reputation was immediately established and the rest is history.