Adding to the list of things I never expected in my life, I auditioned for a role in a community theater play last night.
EEEEEK!!!!
I'll admit I have had fantasies of being an actor. I've seen bad acting and thought, "I can do better than that." I've imagined myself on a set and rehearsed my Oscars speech in the shower. One of my favorite short stories is Kurt Vonnegut's "Who Am I This Time?" about a small town community theater. But it was never a real plan. I would have DIED before doing anything toward that goal and life when I was young.
Well...
Maggie has been doing theater for over a decade, and I've been doing costuming for those plays for over a decade. I've also been running lines with her, reading all of the characters other than hers. And I'm pretty good at it. Now that she is no longer in compulsory school, I'm no longer involved in the productions she's doing, though we are still running lines. And I thought, what the hell? It would be fun to act.
There are several local community theaters that hold open auditions. I did my research and talked to Maggie about how they are usually run. I might need headshots, which Jose would be more than ecstatic to provide. And I (thought I) needed an acting resume. That is something of a challenge, seeing as how I haven't been in a show since playing the Queen of England in a kindergarten Thanksgiving skit. (Or at least so I've been told. I've seen the pictures of myself in a construction paper crown, but I have no memory of the experience.) A Google search found lots of hits for "resume for beginning actor," though ironically, one of the examples included mention of the actor's Tony award. Not precisely a beginner.
BUT!!! I have seven credits as a costume assistant in Maggie's school shows! I still have the programs with my name in them to prove it! And I have two film studies degrees, which isn't acting, but certainly shows a deep interest in analytically watching actors. And, again, during my overactive speechifying in the shower, I thought about how I could describe my strange hippie childhood, in which we had no TV, but we would read aloud to each other, complete with expression and voices and often gestures. With my own children, we did have a TV, but I still spent years reading aloud to them. Before She Who Must Not Be Named was cancelled for being a bigot, I read all seven Harry Potter books to them. I can still recite the first few pages of "Horton Hatches the Egg" from memory, including distinct voices for Maisie and Horton. It's a kind of performing.
So armed with a padded resume and zero real experience, I looked up when theaters were having auditions. I found that the first upcoming play had roles for which I was suitable. I listened to the play and determined to go. I told the four people closest to me in my life, and they unanimously said some version of "omg, you'll be great!"
It's possible I might be a tad...dramatic...in my everyday behavior and presentation? 😳
I was perfectly calm and confident up until the day before the audition. It was a play with only two characters, and I thought that, unlikely as it might be, even if I knocked it out of the park in my very first audition, there was NO WAY anyone in their right mind would cast me, an unknown person with no experience who might not show up to rehearsals, might not be able to memorize the substantial quantity of lines, might just panic and freeze in front of an audience when it came to showtime. So the audition would be entirely an exercise in...auditioning, to the point that I didn't pay much attention to when the shows would be because I assumed the whole venture would begin and end with the first night.
The day before the audition, however, I had a huge crisis of confidence with the realization that I will never get another proper professional job. No one will hire me to be a technical writer ever again. No one will ever so much as interview me for a technical writing job, given my two decade break from a career that was only three years long to begin with. I'm also wholly unsuited for the corporate world. (See previous post.) It was a bad day and I was ready to hide in my house until I died.
But the morning of the audition, when Maggie left for school, she wished me good luck and told me I'd be great, and the expression of hope and pride and delight on her face put to rest any thoughts of skipping the audition and abandoning the project.
So I psyched myself up. What's the absolute worst that could happen? I'd look ridiculous in front of a room full of strangers? Maggie said that even if I bombed, no one would laugh. I would get what she thinks is worse: a pity clap. For me, that is actually better because it shows the people aren't total assholes. And what's more, I am so insignificant that nobody would pay much notice since most people are tied up in their own experiences anyway.
So I went.
I arrived on time, and...theater people are lovely. Broadly smiling gentlemen asked if I'd auditioned there before and didn't stop smiling when I said no. They invited me to fill out my forms, took my picture, showed me the sides (snippets from the play, for the uninitiated *raises hand*) from which we would read. Almost 60 people had RSVPed to the FaceBook announcement, but to my shock, there were a total of seven women, including me, there to audition on the first of two nights. I began to dare to hope. Just a little.
The play is The Half-Life of Marie Curie, about the famous scientist and her best friend, a fellow scientist and a sarcastic, passionate suffragette. Curie is, of course, a legend, but Hertha Ayerton was a turn-of-the-century badass. Though the website said "age will not be a major factor" in casting, if it really is, three of the seven women were honestly a bit too young for the roles, leaving four grown-ass women.
We were invited into the theater and assigned sides from which to cold read. Two were monologues and the rest were with partners. We each had two turns, and I did well, I think. I should have moved more, but I was concentrating more on reading the lines correctly and with expression than physically acting. Two of the actors were...ok. Not at all terrible, but not great. Three were good. One was excellent. (She also had on a great dress. I told her so, and she was pleased because it was new!👏)
We were asked to return to the lobby while the director and her compatriots discussed. The assistant came out and asked if we had any requests for the second round, and I asked to read Hertha since I had read Marie both times. I think she confused me with one of the other ladies because when we went back, I was assigned Marie's monologue and the woman who had done Hertha's once before was asked to do it again. I saw the assistant whisper to the director's husband that she had already done it, as if it was a surprise.
And with that, we were done in just about an hour, but we were asked to return for night two of auditions if we could. And that is where we are at this moment. Tonight I will go back, and we will see who else shows up. In the unlikely even that no one does, I think there are four possible contenders, and I am maybe just barely one of them. Eeek.
Cue A Chorus Line.
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