Derek - Facing Demons

Derek Sitter has just played the part of the Devil in the play Bobby Gould in Hell, put on through the new  Volcanic Theater Pub. He sits at the edge of the stage, wearing devil horns and a fishing vest as he fields questions from the audience.

I found the play excellent and amusing.  Derek was dynamic and riveting as the devil (he apologizes for the use of curse words). He spent much of the the play chastising Bobby Gould (played by Wayne Newcome), demanding he confess his life's evildoing.  

There's been a question I've been dying to ask Derek to add to the stories in demon zine.  I considered addressing my questions in an e-mail but Derek mentioned his medium of expression is through acting. Asking him while he's on stage, still dressed as the devil could not be more appropriate. 

"You won the Source award for Sexiest Teacher (light laugher) and in the article you mention fighting your demons alone in a motel room. Do you mind expounding on that experience? Sorry to get all Terry Gross on your ass."

Years ago, Derek responds, he was at a Motel 6 in Tallahatchi withdrawing from his medication. It was a long night. He had been afraid of everything. He had jealousy. He was in a three-year depression. Walking through his life asleep. 

"I was either going to die or be a better person." 

Saying to the demons, "You can't kill me. What am I afraid of? Fuck it."

It was a long, terrifying night.

It's difficult to draw a demon out. They move carefully around the bones, between the ribs and under, over, around the organs. They are nearly impossible to pin down.
Derek invited his to surface when he stopped taking his meds. He didn't go to sleep. Let the skin boil and the organs shift.

It took staying up all night.

Joel once told me sometimes you just have to stay up until the sun rises to push past something. And if you want to face your demons like Derek you have to give them the space to show themselves. You have to stay awake and exhaust yourself and be at the brink where you'll either live or die. You can't go to sleep. You can't deny them. You can't bury them. You have to sit there and be ravaged by them until they're done with you. Allowing the demons a space to present themselves. 

Giving them the space and madness to speak. And moving forward, whatever it takes 

But in the morning, something was clearer.

Derek, on stage in his devil horns, pretty wife by his side, says he did it for his family. For his daughter.

Now Derek has his theater.  The Volcanic Theater Pub, a dream of his, where you can drink a beer and the characters move from the stage to the audience. His space is off of Century across the courtyard from Goodlife Brewing. He's taking his meds. 


& he's playing the devil now. 

"I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it." - (From the poem The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer)