No Small Parts

They said the cast would be posted online that Tuesday. At least that's how I remember it. At 7 AM on Tuesday they had not yet posted anything. Artsy-fartsies simply cannot be trusted. I checked the website with obsessive consistency throughout the day. I kept trying to limit myself to once every half hour...but five minutes after I checked I would think, "They might have just posted it." And so I would check again. I really didn't know how it would work. Would they call the winners first, or would they really just announce them online? There were three plays to cast...would they be casting the same people in multiple roles? That would certainly decrease the odds. It was maddening, the waiting, the not knowing. That night when I was about to crawl into bed heartsick with grief, my phone rang. It was the director of one of the plays. She was offering me a part. "It's a small part," she said, "I would call it a character part. I think you would appear about three times. Is that something you would be interested in?" My heart was pounding and I could feel my face burning. Now here is the stupid thing. The human ego is really a monstrous thing and the heart of a man (or woman) is wicked beyond any comprehension. My first gut reaction was to be disappointed that I wasn't being offered a starring role. As my wise husband reminded me later when I confessed this gross little foible, "You didn't even think you would get a callback." Over the sound of blood rushing through my ears, I heard my voice answer correctly, "Yes, I would be very interested." She gave me information about when the first read through of the script would be and I hung up the phone. I was fairly irritated with myself to realize that I hadn't thanked her, nor had I any recollection whatsoever of what her name was.

My sister-in-law saw the official announcement online before I did and she emailed me with congratulations and a reminder to print the page. I was excited to see that one of the girls I had met at callbacks was cast as "the beauty." I wasn't even jealous. We older, wiser women must pass the torch to the younger generation, mustn't we? With all gentleness, humility and maturity. Bah. But honestly, I was thrilled to know that I would already have a friend.

It was really only a matter of a day or so before I had a more proper perspective on the situation. Dan was so right! I had been convinced that the audition had completely bombed and in spite of that, I was now going to be on STAGE! It was finally really truly going to happen. The size of the part couldn't possibly matter. One of my favorite theater memories is of playing a courtesan in "A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." I had no lines and was on stage for all of 30 seconds, but the memories I have are of the fun we girls had in rehearsals learning our courtesan dances and of doing the Charleston backstage during performances while we waited for our cues. The experience as a whole is ultimately worth so much more than the number of lines. In fact (and this may just be more psychological hooey), it's possible that getting a small part gave me a greater opportunity to connect with the rest of the cast on in a way that might not have been possible if I'd had a million lines to worry about memorizing. Or even fifteen lines.