Two or
three days after I got a confirmation time-slot for this audition, I realized that I had
auditioned for this same exact show for the same exact company 3-4 years
previously. Fair enough if it had been some generic drama or comedy with a
forgettable name, but this wasn’t the case. A little embarrassing (the memory lapse
that is).
So I was
a bit insecure prostrating myself in front of a company that decided I wasn’t
good enough years ago. As I was waiting to go in, another actor asked the
“greeter” if a comedy monologue was okay, maybe even a comedy Shakespearean
monologue? That was odd. Are you in the right place, buddy?
While
filling out my audition form beforehand, I broke one of my rules and checked
“Yes” to accepting an understudy role if offered.
(I should explain. I don't like to take understudy positions. It's not because I feel I'm above them. I don't feel that way AT ALL. But I like the idea of working, instead of the idea of "Maybe I'll get to perform this weekend...")
The two
people watching my audition couldn’t have been more different in both
temperament and body language. The director was a middle-aged, perpetually
smiling dude. The stage manager was a younger, stern-faced woman with a dead
expression in her eyes.
The
monologue went fine, I felt. I enunciated. I didn’t rush through it.
Afterwards, the director asked me to pick an animal out of some animal names he
gave me. I picked “leech”. For a split second I dreaded that he was going to
make me do the monologue again in the manner of a leech, but instead he gave me
a poem titled “Leech” and asked me to read it as if I was being held at
gunpoint. I did, and hammed it up towards the end.
As I was
leaving the building I ran into an actress acquaintance I hadn’t talked to in
years.
I didn’t
get a part. Not even an understudy part.
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