The butterflies are back. My job is over the for the day, but I’m sitting in my cube eating pizza and waiting. Waiting for the clock to show me 8:10pm. That’s when I have my first theater audition in many years.
Don’t get my wrong. I’m not fooling myself into thinking I’ll snag my first audition right out of the rusty gate. This isn’t the most important audition of my life, and I’ll go ahead and audition for some other productions after this. But it is the first audition in a long time. And thus, the insects fluttering in my belly.
Whoops. Bloody nose. Okay, how can I use that for my character?
So, why get on the acting horse after so many years? I miss it. I miss becoming another character. I miss the intensity. I miss the challenge. The intense feeling of reality the comes when on stage. An odd clarity that reminds you that you’re alive.
I’ve been an improv performer for the last X years, and I don’t plan on giving that up. But my drama self and my improv self feel so far apart. I doubt my friends even know I can actually act. Well, at least, I think I can probably act. Still act. We’ll see.
This isn’t a well thought out essay on the art of acting, or the differences between scripted theater and improv. These are just my thoughts as I sit here, pizza finished, and wait to perform a prepared monologue.
A monologue. I went through my many monologue books and had to pick out something new. My early-20s monologues just wouldn’t do any more. I was looking at a different time frame. Yikes!
Like the rules of improv, I learn my monologue so I can forget it. Let the lines come naturally so I’m not struggling to remember what comes next. Then I can play. Feed in the emotions. Say the quiet lines loud and the loud lines quite. Doesn’t work there. Does work there. Pacing. Voice. Physicality. Recalled emotions.
Look, I’m not saying “you never knew it, guys, but I’m great.” Being the pessimist I am, I’m expecting the blow tonight’s audition. But it’s awfully nice to be doing something a little more substantial than a commercial audition. A commercial audition I’ll never get. Man, you think after two years of commercial auditions I would have gotten something more than extra work.
This is a different beast though. It might go well. There is a character here, not someone grocery shopping or licking a car for 30 seconds.
Time to focus. Wish me luck. Don’t say “break a leg.” That’s dumb. Also, Macbeth.
So how do you feel it went?
Not well. I was a ball of nerves. But I still felt fantastic afterward. I was charged for having done it. Time to look for another one.
Congrats on doing it!
To quote Mike Doughty: First law of rockin’ – don’t stop rockin’.
Good on ya, and have a happy Thanksgiving!
When do you find out if you got the part?