Carlsbad solo artist plans world premiere play about his personal journey toward theatrical success

Patrick Combs relaxes in the living room of his southern Carlsbad home.

Patrick Combs’ “Trying to Break a Leg” will be performed Nov. 30-Dec. 2 in San Diego

By By Michael J. Williams

Del Mar Times

Nov. 24, 2023 5:59 AM PT

One day years ago while he was living in the Bay area, Patrick Combs accepted an invitation from his girlfriend to attend a live performance by Spalding Gray of the actor’s much acclaimed one-man show, “Swimming to Cambodia.”

“I was 24 years old and I walked out of the theater and I thought that’s the greatest thing a person could ever do with their life. Then, all my fears began,” said Combs, 57, a former Encinitas resident who now lives in Carlsbad.

Despite much trial and tribulation, Combs overcame paralyzing self-doubt to produce his own solo stage play, “Man 1, Bank 0.”

In the show, Combs narrates with passion and levity how as a lark he deposited a $95,000 non-negotiable junk mail check into his account through an ATM and his bank unwittingly cashed it. The play had sold-our runs at theaters in the U.S. and seven other countries, including at the Soho Theater in London and the New Zealand International Festival. It was also featured in HBO’s Comedy Festival.

Patrick Combs will debut his solo show "Trying to Break a Leg" on Nov. 30 in San Diego.

Now, Combs has crafted a new solo show — “Trying to Break a Leg,” which will make its world premiere next Thursday in San Diego before heading out on tour.

In “Trying to Break a Leg”, Combs relates in comedic fashion the story of how he overcame years of paralyzing self-doubt to create “Man 1, Bank 0.”

The title of the new show refers to a show-business expression intended ironically as a wish for good luck to performers by saying the opposite.

As Combs tells it, his attempts at ‘breaking a leg’ were fraught with the level of adversity that would break the spirit of most aspirants, beginning with his epiphany inspired by Spalding Gray.

“When we got out of that theater and into the car, I confessed (to my girlfriend), ‘Oh my God, I would love to do what he does.’ She innocently said, ‘Yeah, but you’d have to be funny.’ ... My inner critic took that remark and stopped me from doing that show (for years),” he said.

Combs’ struggle to crack through the internal and external handicaps he encountered in his artistic pursuit was compounded by his lack of exposure to the theatrical arts.

“Like many people’s artistic journeys, the experience can get really painful because the rejection makes you feel so alone,” Combs said. “And I feel extra alone in the process too because I’m not in the theater world when I go to create a theater show. I don’t know any directors, I don’t know any actors, I don’t know any theater people.”

Combs said he had little exposure to the arts growing up in Bend, Ore., raised by his single mother. She is a central figure in “Trying to Break a Leg.”

“After each failure, she was often the person I would call for a pick-me-up, ‘cause I don’t want to call and tell my friends and say, ‘Hey, I’m failing miserably. My ego doesn’t want to say ‘another failure! Hey, guess what, my 12th failure in a row! I’m horrible.’

“As a matter of fact, my friends begin telling me to stop: ‘You’re embarrassing and humiliating yourself. This is no good. You’re not funny.’ So my mom becomes the person I call because dear Mom is so good at saying ‘Well, keep trying son. You’ve got this,’” he said.

During a recent interview at his home, Combs said his attraction to the arts occurred after he moved to the Bay area to attend San Francisco State University. He was captivated by the performances of street musicians on and around the campus, especially a duo that included esinger-guitarist Tom Fleming, whose music is featured in “Trying to Break a Leg.”

Combs recalls visiting Fleming at his “hovel,” which doubled as a studio.

“The music is freaking blaring,” Combs said. “I walk in and Tom has to take the headphones off to notice that I’m with him, and he turns to me and he yells, ‘Follow your bliss. That’s what Joseph Campbell says.’ He puts back on the headphones and he goes back to work.”

Three decades later, Campbell’s full inspirational quote — “Follow your Bliss and the universe will open doors for you, where there were only walls” — now decorates a wall in Combs’ living room.

“This new show is entirely about that quote,” Combs said. “It is to make that quote real to the audience. (Canadian writer) Basil King said it another way: ‘Be bold and mighty forces will come to your rescue.’ My show intends to smack the audience in their heart and have them go ‘Be bold and mighty forces will come to your rescue.’ That’s for real.”

After meeting Fleming and his sidekick, Combs said, he volunteered to become their manager and booked show for them up and down the West Coast. He later managed a band including Fleming that was known as The Magpies.

“What I really wanted to do was be in the band, but I didn’t play any instrument. So that was my way of getting in the band. And I freaking loved it. I was suddenly in a rock band in the only position I could attain. I really did them good. ... My 20s were about me getting as close to artists as I could.”

As self-deprecating as Combs can be about his path toward success in the arts, he was no stranger to the stage when he launched “Man 1, Bank 0.”

In his mid-20s, Combs said, he attended a presentation by Tom Peters, author of the best-selling business book “In Search of Excellence.”

“In my (opinion), Tom Peters is an artist with business talk,” Combs said. “As long as (someone was) great onstage, whatever was inside of me would just start turning somersaults and say, ‘Oh my God, I want to be great onstage.’” ...

“That’s the first time I thought I could do that. I was too insecure to think I could do what Spalding Gray did, but I found just enough bravado to think I could approximate what Tom Peters did.”

Combs developed a program aimed to encourage college students to pursue their passions, an approach that blossomed into a career as an inspirational speaker and author.

One night, Combs said, he was sitting in a hotel room for an out-of-town speaking engagement when he tuned in a show featuring an entertainer with whom he was unfamiliar. It was John Leguizamo doing his autobiographical solo show “Freak.”

“It is like someone takes a screwdriver, sticks it right here and starts turning it in my chest,” Combs said. “I will never forget the pain in my stomach because all I feel is, ‘This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, what he’s doing onstage. I want it so badly, I want to be that guy and I never could do that. And that’s the worst feeling I’ve ever known in my life, ‘cause he’s better than Spalding Gray.”

That catapulted Combs into an even deeper exploration of the relation between his inner-self and his quest for artistic expression. He began writing a list with the heading “What Are You So Afraid Of?”

“I fill up an entire page on why me, the inspirational speaker, is so afraid to do what I really, really, really, really love. And then like a feather floating down on a battlefield, I suddenly hear a different voice in my head that I’ve never heard in my life and it whispers a radical thought: ‘Could you just do a one-person show for fun?’ ...

“In that moment, I realized I’m putting so much pressure on myself to be like Spald, to be like John, to make it as big as they’ve made it on Broadway, I’d paralyzed myself with pressure and fear before I ever tried. And I was like, I could just do it for fun, with no thoughts of ever being successful at it.

“Yes, I could do that with the simple idea of telling people’s stories. And I was free to finally go for it. It didn’t mean that I was going to be good. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to fail and fail and fail. But I could finally begin and I did.”