USD Magazine, Winter 1995

WORDS OF WISDOM When Jack O'Brien addressed the USD undergraduates at their May 22 commencement ceremony, he offered a gift from his heart. am extremely happy to be here today. Tucked within that most banal of statements is the seed I wish to dis– cuss with you today. For anyone choosing a life in the performing arts - and I strongly sug– gest a vigorous program of guidance counseling for anyone so inclined - for anyone choosing a life in the performing arts, the career choices are fairly narrow and focused. You hope you will work. You hope you will be able to earn a living for yourself and, God willing, your family. Finally, I guess you hope for some degree of acceptance from your audiences and the critical faculty. And that's about it. I would say that nowhere in the top IO or even 20 possible career goals available does it ever occur to you that you might be standing in front of an audience like this one, about to accept an honorary degree from a distinguished university. So I feel as if an enormous question mark hangs in the air above my head. How did this possibly come to be? And since it is customary to give some token of esteem, some gift, some talisman to the graduating seniors to take with them on the road ahead; and since I assume you all have dictionaries; and since the only acceptable alternative might be a personal check made out to each of you for $500 ••• get over it! The least I can do is to offer some explanation for the situation which separates me by more than 30 years from sitting where you are today. I love my work. Almost immoderately. Even at this point in my career, it astonishes me that anyone would want to pay me for what I do. Now this is clearly a sentiment my agent would prefer I do not share with you in public. But whenever someone from the media asks me which of the plays or operas, the musicals or television plays I have done is my favorite, I invariably, and I think honestly, reply, "The one I'm working on now. I am extremely happy to be here." As graduates, you are in possession of a shiny, powerful new machine, which you are about to kick-start. It has taken well over 16 years to assemble this machine, and it is a tribute to your perseverance and deter– mination, and has taken some of the best minds available in the academic world, and a considerable amount of money; and it is this machine which is meant to carry you forward throughout your careers. And if you ask me what it is that will power that machine and make it work for you, I would answer: passion. In this cool, sophisticated and even cynical world, passion is not something we talk about, or are comfortable dis– cussing. If I have one wish for you today, it would be that in 10 or 20 or even 30 years, if anyone stops you - as they have stopped me today - and asks you how it is going and how you're doing, you could say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, "I am extremely happy to be here." I am extremely happy to be here. And that, I believe, has made all the difference.

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