The long and short of it all

Obviously been quite some time, but things have been quiet on the home front. I must admit, I haven't exactly been super actively 'chasing the dream' these past few months. Sometimes a girl just needs a breather. There will ALWAYS be auditions and gigs, so long as you still have your sanity, and I quite frankly felt that I was losing my grip on my own, thus the break.

Shattered Focus, the film that I started working on in the spring, wrapped sometime early this summer and I hadn't done much of anything up until this past week. I finally jumped back in the saddle at a theater audition on Sunday. I was reading for 2 parts and had requested the sides ahead of time so that I could be familiar with and start to analyze the characters. The problem with this particular production is that it was made into a movie casting actresses who are so fitting for each of the parts, that it's hard to envision anyone else playing them, let alone try to recreate the characters in a "new way."

Nevertheless I made the trip across the river to a Sojo playhouse where I sat for 3 hours waiting to read for 5 minutes. (Isn't acting great?!) It's always tough being the out-of-towner, because it seems as though everyone around you knows someone (director, stage manager, the janitor...whomever) or they know each other from previous productions. Great! even more pressure to give a spectacular audition. (ya I know, typical, but hey a girl's gotta vent).

3 hours ticks by and they're finally calling for one of the parts that I want to read for. Yippee. Except that there's a decent number of women reading for this part, and every time the Board Member came out to call another one of us the woman next to me would say "Either one of us this time!" yet there always seemed to be someone else waiting to read for that part. So as you can imagine that got old REAL FAST. Finally I'm called into the room, sides in hand ready to really show them what I've got. "Ok can you just skip to the monologue on the last page of side 2 and run through that?" WHAT?! I prepped for the past week for this audition and you're only going to ask me to read a brief monologue, when there's a whole scene just waiting for my interpretation? "Oh sure, of course." Ugh.

Back to the waiting room I go, feeling less than thrilled, to wait to read for the other character. This time though, when the Board Member appeared, he came out to tell us who we'd be paired with to read for this last scene. Cool, not just a reader, but someone else auditioning for the character opposite mine. Our full names were barely out of the man's mouth when the woman I was paired with was darting to find us a quick rehearsal space. Whoa intense! but ok, I can appreciate her enthusiasm. And did I get the luck of the draw. As soon as we found somewhere to ourselves she was asking "Do you mind if I touch your face or grab your arm? I mean we're supposed to be mother and daughter so is that ok?" Of course. Anything to make the scene more believable, right? We were able to run through about 75% of the scene before we were called into the audition room. As we hurried into the room my partner turns and says "wow! you're really good!" What? Me? Really? This coming from a woman who's done the show twice in the past. Well now I'm stoked! We get in there, get it done, and I really think we killed it. I felt so comfortable with this woman and it seemed like we were really able to feed off of each other.

I pretty much floated out of the room, as I thanked everyone for the opportunity to audition (my partner had to stay behind to perform a monologue for her character) and per my usual I didn't bother to ask any particulars about when they'd be casting or if there would be call backs. In my defense, they seemed to be rushing towards the end (hence the quick monologue for character 1) but alas now I have to sit and play the waiting game for...well idk how long. Had the audition not gone so well, I might feel bad about all of this, but I really don't think I would have changed anything if I were to do it over again (yup I feel that confident) so if I'm not cast, I don't think I'll be that upset. And that is a small victory in and of itself.