DRAMEDY - JUNE 2015

I accidentally scheduled a dental clean-up for the same day as this. I showed up to the audition feeling fine, but worried that my teeth looked pink.

There was one serious-looking actor ahead of me. When his turn came, he let me go ahead of him because he wasn’t ready. Dude wasn’t doing his monologue out loud but internally. Whatever.

I did my monologue from “Candid”. I felt fine doing it. The one guy behind the table laughed a few times. The two women smiled pleasantly. When I woke up the next day, I found the standard “Thanks, but no thanks” email on my phone. For some reason, this hurt a little more than other rejections. I can’t explain it.

Post script – a week later, the same show put another audition notice online for a role in the show that was either suddenly available again/never cast in the first place. Ouch.

TARANTINO/SHAKESPEARE MASHUP - APRIL 2015

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.

LOCALLY WRITTEN FARCE - FEBRUARY 2015

I biked, even though there was snow and slush on the streets. So - of course - I showed up with a soggy, filthy rear end.

They were seeing actors and actresses in groups of five. I was with three dudes a little bit younger than me and a man in his 50s/60s. As we were waiting I heard him ask, “Do you do this often?”

I looked up and realized he was not asking anyone in particular, but all of us. Some Young Jerk kind of answered him with a non-committal grunt. A few minutes later he asked the room again: “Do you do this often?”

It turns out he was quite new to this acting thing. He’d been in a show recently in Skokie. But the audition for that show, he said – and I hope I misheard – was “cooled readings”.

First, we went in separately to do our individual monologues. Then they called us in as a group where we did a little bit of improv. I thought I did fairly. The older gentleman seemed a bit daunted by the things the two directors asked him to do and he stood there for a few awkward seconds trying to figure out what to do before being prompted (politely, but curtly), “Just start; don’t think about it.”

As I left I secretly hoped I wouldn’t be asked to callbacks for a bizarre reason: I wanted to cut my hair. It had gotten super bushy lately, but it hadn’t bothered me until the day of auditions.

So, of course, I got invited to callbacks.

Roughly two dozen actors and actresses showed up. After a brief introduction to all of us (who were all sitting in the black box theatre) scenes were handed out from the show. I was one of the first. In it I played a guy who narrated what he was doing like a 1940s private eye. I was immediately asked to read another scene because the actress I was going to read with had to leave early. Fine with me, and maybe I’d get to leave early, too, after reading two scenes. About a half hour passes while I sit there watching others read scenes. The director, assistant director and playwright then tell us to take five while they decided who to send home first. Five minutes later they arrive and say, “If your name isn’t called, then you can go.” The director then reads off twenty names.

There are twenty-four of us there. Wouldn’t it have just been simpler to name off the four who could go?

Anyways, I wind up reading twice more – both times it’s the private detective scene I read the first time. The first time I re-read it I am quietly bolstered by the fact that they may have already decided me for this role. The second time I am (inwardly) petulant and embarrassed, thinking, “C’mon, guys. 1. Its obvious to everyone else here and 2. I can read for other parts, too, y’know? I got mad range.”

Long story short – I got cast in that role, and, looking back in hindsight, it wouldn’t have mattered/made sense to have me read anything else. Quit yer whining, "Ryan".

OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING DRAMA - JANUARY 2015

Ran “late” for this despite my apartment being three blocks away from the audition location. Read as a “ghost dad” character twice from a scene with an actor already cast in the show. The director asked me if I was okay working with kids and that made me feel positive for some reason.

 A week later I was informed I wasn’t getting cast.

DRAMA - JANUARY 2015

A painless in-and-out. Did my monologue. Absolutely no drama (if you’ll pardon the pun).

LOCALLY WRITTEN COMEDY - DECEMBER 2014

The auditions are cold-readings, which I prefer. I claim to be no good at improv, but I consider cold readings to be a sort of scripted improv. You have to make up and inhabit a completely new character on the spot with only a few minutes familiarization of the script. Also, most cold readings (such as this one) are done in front of all of the actors. The first group has it easy. Every actor, in every following group, in different permutations has to be worried whether they’re copying a previous actor’s performance, mannerisms, etc.

Right away, I clock three attractive actresses. But the person who makes the most impression is another actor. The outside temperatures were in the 30s. But this jerk isn’t wearing a coat – merely a tweed jacket, and a scarf wrapped twice around his neck. To complete this bohemian air, he’s got floppy hair and a beard. I take an instant dislike to him.

All of the actors are called into the black box and go through the same scene several times over the next hour. At one point, Bohemian Guy makes me feel bad about disliking him by having really excellent comic timing. And then he places his hand on the knee of the attractive actress playing his wife and I go back to disliking him. One actress is super late to the auditions. When she gets up to do a scene, she’s really awful and stilted. I feel embarrassed for her. I then feel relieved when the director doesn’t have her get up again. Later that night, I get invited to callbacks.

CALLBACKS A FEW DAYS LATER...

     I don’t see any familiar faces at the callbacks except one of the attractive actresses…and the same side from the first audition. What the hell? This is a new one on me. As we're all waiting around, a Local Celebrity shows up. Basically, the Local Celebrity is a guy who's worked with the company before, is here to audition for the show, is on a (loud) first name basis with the director, and I'm Definitely Being Cast In This Show And My Being Here Is Just a Formality. Whatever.

     In one of the scene groupings, I play the main character. The director tells me to play him slightly drunk. I happily oblige, having plenty of real world experience. The next time around, I am assigned a different character, and the Local Celebrity is assigned the part I just read. He asks the director, “How drunk should I play it this time?”

     In another of the scene groupings another attractive actress plays my wife. During the scene, she starts running her hands through my hair. All I can think of at this point is, Golly, I hope we both get cast in this. At the end of the night, the director promises to let everyone know his decision in two days.

          Three days later I get the rejection form email. I’ve gotten used to them. However this is the first time a director has forgotten to cut-and-paste my name at the beginning. My email began with: “Hey Ryan" and continued on with your standard boilerplate rejection email. 

     My name ain't Ryan.

     Part of me is miffed. Another part of me is hopeful they maybe I was sent this email in error (even though there's a small voice in my head screaming it isn't possible), so I quickly reply to the director for a clarification. But, yeah, he just forgot to change the name on the rejection email when he sent it to me.

     I shared this moment on facebook the next morning much to the amusement of my actor friends. One of them consoled me with the comment: "Better luck next time, Ryan."

LOCALLY WRITTEN CHRISTMAS VARIETY SHOW - OCTOBER 2014

The audition is at a company member’s house. A kind of cluttered, yet eccentric house. There was one guy ahead of me. Once he was done, he wished me luck and left. I did my stock comedy monologue for the director and the host in her dining room. It went pretty well. As I was leaving, I was told to help myself to the Trick or Treat candy in the bowl next to the front door.

I actually wound up getting three roles in the show, but the production was cancelled before the read-through due to three actors dropping out (the more likely story is the actors read the scripts, didn't like them, and then bullshitted their way out of the production). The director worried that we didn’t have enough rehearsal time to blah blah blah. The scripts weren’t amazing, but I hadn’t been in a show in over five months at this point. I was really disappointed.