The Audition

I auditioned for a play.


Tucked away in a scrapbook somewhere is a community college newspaper review of a performance I gave 12 years ago that was nothing short of spectacular. Every time I have called the performance to mind over the passing years, it has grown grander and more magnificent. For one glorious year 12 years ago, I was a relatively big fish in a relatively small pond and I tasted the thrill of being a small town stage diva.


When I moved from Brainerd to "the Cities", I told myself and everyone who asked that I was going to try to be an actress. My move had nothing to do with the boy I had met just a month or two earlier. Sure it didn't. I was young and pretty (and vain) and had every confidence in the world that whenever I decided to grace an audition with my presence, I would then become an actress. And so there was no real hurry. I looked in the paper at audition notices on occasion (this was when the "internet" was still mainly only available on a pay per minute basis). I think I called on one once...but I never got around to going. And then this boy and I fell in love and around that same time, I was blindsided by Jesus and suddenly everything was different. Different interests, different priorities, different loves, different values. It seemed such a frivolous thing to want to act on a stage. It seemed desparate. So the dream just settled into history as happy memories to be pulled out from time to time to offer validation or add interest to an otherwise dull autobiography.


And yet, through all the years of practical life, there has always been a longing...not a desparation...just a longing. The memories that I have of the brief time I spent on stage are some of the happiest memories I know. They are memories of belonging, of excelling, of laughing, of comraderie, of inventing, of creating, of living. And so at long last, I decided to hunt for an audition.


There is a terrific theatre that my hubby and I saw "Guys and Dolls" at a few years ago. For whatever reason, this theatre struck me as one that would be great fun to be involved in, and also seemed a more accessible and less intimidating option than any others I am aware of. From time to time, when the acting bee would start buzzing in my proverbial bonnet, I would check that theatre's website and look at their audition postings. Everytime I checked, they were either auditioning for a musical (too scarey) or had just posted a new cast list. But finally, on one happy Sunday afternoon, I checked again, and lo and behold, they were holding auditions that very week for an evening of three one act plays written by the lovely Agatha Christie. And so, with much fear and trembling, I determined that I would give it a go. And I did.

The experience itself was moderately terrifying. The only auditions I had ever attended had involved a room full of many people reading scenes together. This audition was a complete unknown to me. It lasted all of 4 minutes. I entered a room all alone and faced a panel of three strange but smiling faces and one face that never looked up during the process. This face just sat in the corner writing things. I called this face "bad cop". I read a little monologue that was provided from one of the plays being auditioned for...badly, I thought. So badly. And then I was asked to read it again with more dripping sarcasm and less mystery. And so I tried. It was awful and then it was over. And then it was awful all weekend. I replayed the minutes over and over...mourning an opportunity lost. "I am a genius of dripping sarcasm! Why didn't I try harder to prove it?"

Dan (husband) and I took Penny (dog) for a walk on Sunday, the day after the event. I had been trying all the self psychology I could think of to make it less awful. "At least I did it." "It was a great learning experience." "I will be less nervous next time." "Next time I will try actually ACTING (instead of just reading)." These were all true statements of course, but really complete crap as they did nothing to soothe the awful. And then around 2 in the afternoon, I got a glorious phone call from a dear sweet lady inviting me to a call back audition the following evening.

The callback was a completely different experience. There were about 30 of us there and instantly I remembered everything that I loved about the theater. Everyone was friendly, many were strange, some were pretty, some were not, some were old, some were young, and there was one lady there who I think was straight-up crazy. We all sat in a hallway making fast friends with whoever sat next to us. "Have you acted here before?" "Where did you drive from?" "Have you seen any of the scripts?" "What other plays have you done?" And then we were herded into the same room that the original audition had taken place in. It was far less frightening filled with 30 nervous and excited actors. And "bad cop" was nowhere to be seen.

And then my ego took a hit. The directors handed out scripts for scenes with parts we were being concidered for. It was at that moment that I discovered that 12 years had taken "pretty" and "young" away from me...although "vain" was obviously not going to be defeated. I was asked to read for "Mom" and "Emmeline...a grim woman." Ouch. What about "An extremely pretty young woman" and "The Beauty"? Alas, a grim part is better than no part. And I know a lot of pretty, young moms. With my vain head held high, I retreated to the hall with the rest of the cattle where we waited for our moment to shine.