Well this will be a short one since I’m recovering from choking during an audition and getting my acting butt kicked! Lol–what, you didn’t think I was actually choked and beat up, did you? Awww–you did! Well I appreciate the sentiment. Really I do! In reality, I auditioned at SJREP (Yeah, my place of work!) and unfortunately I fell short.
When I got back to my desk to resume the daily work, I mentally reassessed what happened. I wasn’t prepared! Yes, I know…I can see some of you trying to hand me your copy of Stanislavski’s “An Actor Prepares”. I’ll generously wave that down, as I have a copy of it myself. I planned on going tomorrow but instead I was convince by the lovely equity audition moderator to go ahead and swing in today. In retrospect, I should have waited.
I was 3/4 through my monologue when suddenly…BLANK–my throat felt constricted, my palms started to sweat up (believe it or not, I was pretty calm walking in there) and the hairs on my back stood on ends. How could this be?! I’ve recited/experienced this monologue many times over the past few weeks. Then I realized the key ingredient. This was the FIRST time I’ve ever performed it to anyone. Oi vey.
If I feel I absolutely must dwell on a poor performance at an audition, I’m in the habit of only allowing myself five to ten minutes, tops. In this case, it rested on my head, chest, abdomen, thighs–gah, everywhere, for a solid two hours. The fact that I work here and that I see and hold conversations with Bruce, our casting director must have confused the butterflies in my stomach to, instead of perform aerial ballet, kamakazi into my stomach lining. It felt weird! To say the least.
The two hours are up, it’s time to move on and knock another down for experience, even if it was a smidgen bit embarrassing.