Welp.

That was short-lived. 

The second night of auditions was evidently the night all the real actors showed up. Lit-er-al-ly, the lead from the show that Maggie was just in came to audition. Half the women knew each other and the ACT staff from other shows. Many had their pictures on the walls.

If I'm honest, last night was what I expected from the first night: twenty or so people who were way more experienced and obviously better than I am, who were all part of the local theater scene. The fake-out was a small pool of decent, but not outstanding, amateur actors that first night, not people who studied theater in college, have acted for decades, and fell just short of their Broadway dreams, so now they do community theater Upstate as an unpaid vocation.

Last night, I was clearly one of the worst actors, though I probably shouldn't presume to call myself that. To my surprise and contrary to their stated plan for what was going to happen, I did get to read twice even though I had been at the first night and should have only gone once toward the end, you know, if there was time. So that was either very kind of them, or possibly cruel, in case they just wanted to silently laugh at me and my zero experience, then gossip about it afterward, my not having even realized the first night that I should make sure to stand in the light. Doh. 

Jose and Maggie say I'm being too hard on myself, assuming that they were being pityingly generous. But when the director literally said to the first night of small, evidently modestly talented turnout, "you're all so good, you're making my job hard"? And the disclaimer that if you were asked to leave after the first round, it did not mean the director didn't like you, but only that she had seen what she needed to see? And saying they were pleased to see new faces in addition to welcoming back old hands? Except that as we, the dismissed, all scattered out into the night, it was clear the big kids were taking the ball back into the theater to play for real. So it's hard to believe that they aren't just being nice—which, don't get me wrong, is lovely. It just leaves me wondering whether I should give up the whole stupid idea—admittedly as I have nearly every other thing that I wasn't instantly good at. But even if I took acting classes for the next five years before auditioning again, I would still fall short of their individual and collective experience. 

And I don't think I would have felt quite so bad about it if not for that first night that gave me such hope that I had even a sliver of a chance of actually getting a role, rather than my initial expectation of learning how auditions go.