Mary Rodgers Guettel. (Photo by Peter Schaaf) View slide show of Commencement images.

When the mercury began its erratic but inexorable climb into the 40s or thereabouts, it dawned on me that there was indeed a problem. I had never made a commencement speech in my life! I launched into a feverish period of research, which primarily involved analyzing the contents of some Juilliard speeches made during my tenure here.

They were all quite wonderful. No two alike, naturally, but thematically and schematically similar, and they came in two sections.

The first section was a sort of modest confessional, describing the many agonies, pitfalls, perils and colossal insecurities suffered in the speaker’s early years: i.e., becoming a successful artist is very hard and scary work but you just have to believe in yourself and dare to take chances. Which coincided nicely with something Barbara Cook told her master class students this year: “The very place where safety lies for us is where it feels the most dangerous.”

The second section was advice: Once you’ve become a successful artist (which all the speakers had, or else they wouldn’t have been getting honorary doctorates, right?)… once you’ve become a successful artist, watch out for False Values—which means Working for Money Alone Is a Bad Thing. Be true to yourself and do what you love, which may mean very little or no money but hey, it’s worth it.

"At the age of 4, a lot of you guys were already scaling the legs of the piano bench to reach those keys, or begging for your own tiny violin..."

Now, here was my dilemma. All these speeches were delivered by the artist at the podium (Zoe Caldwell, Kevin Kline, Terrence McNally—distinguished types like that) to the graduating artists in the audience. Swell. But where did that leave me? I wasn’t an artist! And if not, who was I, anyway, and what was I going to say at that podium? Clearly, I was having an identity crisis—which is nothing new; I’d had them all my life. Who am I? What am I? What am I doing up here?

Okay, then. As Mary Martin said to the von Trapp children, let’s start at the very beginning...

My conception took place on my parents’ European honeymoon. I guess misconception is more like it, since they hadn’t planned on having anything except a very good time for at least a year. A few months later, there was another misconception. My parents were convinced I was going to be a boy called Peter. A few months after that, when the doctor handed five-and-a-half pounds of red, wrinkled Mary to my mother, she said (and there were witnesses): “Take her away and bring her back when she looks younger.” I wish somebody would do that for me now.

At the age of 4—when I was deemed mature enough not to disturb the audience, and to know when to applaud—I was taken to my father’s musical Jumbo, after which I was taken backstage to curtsy to the stars. My identity? Richard Rodgers’ daughter. Okay, fair enough—but at the age of 4, a lot of you guys were already scaling the legs of the piano bench to reach those keys, or begging for your own tiny violin, or attempting to warble your way through the “Queen of the Night” aria. You knew exactly who you were and what you wanted.

At 8, I began piano lessons. At 9, I could render a reasonably acceptable performance of something out of a beginners’ book called Haydn Made Idiot Simple or Bartok Made Loud—stuff like that, when—Gott im Himmel—along came a spider who sat down beside her and scared little Miss Mary right off the piano bench. The spider was my 5-year-old sister.

Now I had two identities: Richard Rodgers’ daughter and Linda Rodgers’ older sister. (“Mary’s okay, but wait’ll you hear the younger one.”) And what were you all doing at 9, 10, 12, 14? Well, let’s see. Some of you were in baby ballet schools all over the country, mashing lamb’s wool into your toe shoes. For the Billy Elliots, dance belts.

Some of you were already here in Pre-College, trying to master English and violin (or piano or some such) in order to meet the standards of a Dorothy DeLay, a Veda Kaplinsky, or one of their inspired colleagues on the Juilliard faculty.

Others of you were writing, acting in, and producing plays in the family garage, determinedly ignoring the amusement, impatience, and exquisite boredom of your captive audience. Twitch and squirm till the cows come home, you thought to yourself. I am going to be an actor. Or a writer... No! I am an actor or a writer. Possibly both. I know who I am. I barely know what the word “identity” means, but I’ve got one. Ha!

Not me, buster. Having given up my career as a concert pianist, I considered being a doctor, like my grandfather and my uncle, but gave that up after almost flunking chemistry. I was a lousy actress. As Doctor Gibbs in Our Town in my all-girls’ high school, I was an even lousier actor. (But at least I was playing a doctor.) I was also a lousy singer; I have four voluptuous notes in the bass (which is probably why I was cast as Dr. Gibbs).

At 17 I went to Wellesley, to become I-hadn’t-the-faintest-idea. Well, I did, actually, but I was afraid to say it out loud: composer. I had one old identity: Richard Rodgers’ daughter, and two new ones: debutante (girls from New York City were always assumed to be debutantes) and Jew—which, according to many kids who’d never before encountered that subspecies, meant I probably had horns and talked funny. After pointing out that being a debutante and a Jew was an oxymoron, that I clearly had no horns and didn’t talk any funnier than anyone else around there, I eliminated the two new identities, but still had none to call my own.

By the time I was the age of some of you (old enough to graduate), I had decided not to bother. Why? Well, although I had been fiddling around writing music since I was 15 or so, I was getting pretty fed up with Wellesley, which didn’t even offer a composition major. I left in November of my senior year, and within two months, had acquired a spanking new identity: wife! Practically a child-bride—although of course, in the 1950s, child-brides were almost as common in New York as they are in Bombay. Anyway, now I was Mrs. Somebody. Unfortunately, the wrong somebody. Five years later, I was the divorced mother of three with some published and recorded childrens’ songs under my belt, plus a lot of toys and pacifiers under my feet. Now, you guys may not be able to predict exactly where you’ll be by the time you’re in your mid-20s, but I promise you one thing: you will not be watching three little ankle-biters grubbing around in a sandbox in Central Park. You are artists. You will be plying your trades and forging your identities.

In 1959 I had a real breakthrough: Once Upon a Mattress, an Off-Broadway musical with Carol Burnett, who instantly became a household name. I became Mary-Rodgers-the-daughter-of-composer-Richard-Rodgers who is a “composer in her ‘own right’.” (Can somebody tell me what the hell that means? Who else’s right would I be a composer in? The English language is insane.)

By 1969 I had made identity progress. I was now Mrs. Henry Guettel, contented wife of Henry, mother of five (the aforementioned three little ankle-biters, who had morphed into hulking teenagers, and their two little ankle-biter brothers), and I was also still Mary Rodgers the composer. However, after 10 years filled with one colossal Broadway flop, one Off-Broadway review (nicely received; ran for over a year but netted me no money because the producer was a crook), and one heartbreaker of a musical that was the best work I’d ever done but was never produced (don’t ask!), I was discouraged, depressed, demoralized, and decidedly discontented with my chosen profession. Who needs this? I don’t have to do this. I think I’d be happier not doing this. I think I’ll stop.

I stopped. I wrote children’s books. Fairly good ones. Disney asked me to adapt one of them, so I stopped being a children’s book author and became a screenwriter. Not for long. After five screenplays—two produced, three in perpetual turnaround (that means not ever going to be produced)—I was making fairly decent money, but being a screenwriter is the pits. Unlike theater or publishing, you have no control over your work. The studio can change it, hire others writers to change it, eliminate it, eliminate you—you’re a slave, for God’s sake! Who needs it? I quit.

Here are some other careers I dabbled in: adult author. I wrote a book with my mother—who, by the way, in spite of her many accomplishments as interior designer, entrepreneur, inventor, and arts administrator, seemed to have identity problems of her own. For example, whenever we traveled together, she would unfailingly find a way to... well, get this: We were once in a jewelry store in the arcade of the most super-deluxe hotel in Tokyo. My mother was purchasing pearls from the store manager. Now, I don’t remember exactly how she deftly maneuvered the conversation around from pearls to musical theater, but I suddenly hear her saying, “You’ve heard of Oklahoma, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, yes? Well, I’m Mrs. Richard Rodgers, wife of the composer.”

What was the matter with her! She didn’t need to do that! Besides, the price of the pearls immediately went up, I’m sure. Anyway, I digress. With my mother, Dorothy, wife of famous composer Richard Rodgers, we wrote a book on—would you believe it?—etiquette. Me, on etiquette? Me? The only person who won’t wear the dumb hat at commencement; who, if spoonless, stirs her coffee with the stem of her eyeglasses; who sits yoga-style at board meetings (this peculiar posture is noticed only by the two people she’s sitting between, until the moment she asks for a motion to adjourn while simultaneously sliding under the table to retrieve her shoes, which have mysteriously wandered to the other side of the room).

The book was extravagantly produced, but didn’t sell too well—probably because only one of the co-authors knew what she was talking about. However, it led to a new career. Dorothy and Mary Rodgers, wife and daughter of famous composer Richard Rodgers, wrote a monthly question-and-answer column in McCall’s magazine. For eight bloody, awful, boring years we did that—until my mother demanded a pay raise they didn’t want to give us, so we weren’t renewed. And boy, was I glad! Saved me the trouble of quitting.

Are you beginning to detect an emerging pattern? I was a Jill-of-all-trades who never stuck with anything very long. Even the things I loved, like writing music—which, by the way, I did sporadically continue to do over the years. When I was in the middle of a musical project, I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else. But when the project was finished, it was as though I’d stuffed the music passion into a watertight compartment I had no access to. Furthermore, I didn’t care. I was perfectly happy doing something else. No wonder I had no identity... but I’ll come back to that in a minute.

What I’m coming to now is Part Two of a prototypical Juilliard commencement speech: Advice to the graduating artists in the audience. (Part Two will be shorter because, not being one of you, I haven’t much advice to give.) Part Two is all about addiction. You singers, dancers, actors, musicians—how addicted are you to whatever it is you do? Because, take it from me: it’s not how good you feel when you’re doing whatever; it’s how bad you feel when you’re not. And if you don’t feel bad when you’re not, for pity’s sake, don’t! It’s one helluva tough life, and unless you’re hopelessly hooked, you’ll be happier doing something else. I cite as an example a good friend of mine, who graduated from here a few years ago. She is happy not to be an artist. Instead, she’s an extremely successful businesswoman, married, two kids, leads a very busy life, and devotes whatever leftover time she has to Juilliard, because she says every step she takes and every decision she makes has been informed by what she learned here. That, of course, will be true of you, too, whether or not you become successful professionals—and most of you will.

But this addiction thing… my father is a classic case in point. When I was a child, he told me over and over again how lucky he was to get up every morning, looking forward to his work. How most people in the world got up every morning and didn’t. My father loved writing music more than he loved my mother, his children, friends, food, money. He had no hobbies, no interests that weren’t related to the theater. My daughter Nina once described him like this: “He invented a special world. In anything to do with musicals, he lived in full color; the grass was green, the sky was blue, the birds sang and the butterflies flitted about. The real world was black-and-white to him, and not pretty at all.” True. And when he got older, after Oscar died, with one exception—the musical for which he wrote both music and lyrics—he worked with people who were wrong for him (too young, too different, sometimes too untalented), and the shows ranged from mediocre to lousy. The critics thought so, the audiences thought so, and he knew so, although he never acknowledged this publicly.

But would he stop? Heavens, no! That man would have set the phone book to music if there wasn’t anything better available. His last show, another unsuccessful one, opened a month before he died at the age of 77. If that’s not an addict, I don’t know what is. And I envy him. He knew who he was, just as you all know who you are.

As for me? Poor, non-addicted, identity-less me? Wanna hear something truly, truly embarrassing?

This winter, shortly before Christmas, I think it was, I was sitting alone at a table in the Red Eye Grill across the avenue from Carnegie Hall, waiting for my husband. Next to me, crammed at a tiny table, were two young musicians in black tie, their violin cases unavoidably spilling over into my space.

“Sorry,” said one of them, and began to remove his case.

“Oh, no, no,” I protested, ingratiatingly. “You’re not in my way, really.” Pause. “What orchestra are you with?”

“The DSO—Dallas Symphony Orchestra,” explained the other one.

“Ah, of course!” I nodded delightedly. “My husband and I are going to your concert tonight,” adding modestly, “I’m chairman of Juilliard.”

“Wow,” they exclaimed.

"Being members of the Juilliard Community will stand you in good stead, no matter where you go or what you do."

My own ears couldn’t believe what had just come out of my own mouth. I had to tell two total strangers in the DSO I was Chairman of Juilliard?! My God, I was worse than my mother! What was the matter with me, where was my self-respect, my pride; why did I do that?

And then… and then… and then, it struck me. I did that because, over the 10 years I have been directly associated with all of you, Juilliard had become—is—my self-respect, my pride... my life.

So, at the end of the day, as you are stepping up and out to greater glory, I am stepping down—but not out, simply sideways to bask in the glory that surrounds me here. Because, finally, I have found my identity and you have given it to me.

Along with all of you, all of you—the faculty, the administration, the trustees, the students, the alums, the parents, along with every single person who has ever come here to work or to admire what goes on here—I too am a member of the Juilliard community. Aside from my family, you have made my life more meaningful than I ever dreamed it could be.

This speech is my love letter to my community, and especially to you guys out there, because you’re leaving, and I want you never to forget how valuable, how rare, how uniquely gifted you are. Being members of the Juilliard community will stand you in good stead, no matter where you go or what you do. Listen, there may be people somewhere who have actually never heard of Rodgers and Hammerstein, but everyone everywhere has heard of Juilliard.

So be proud, be brave, be well, be happy, and be best—why not? You are best. As artists, you are civilization’s Higher Power, and in this troubled world, we need you very badly.

Goodbye.