Auditioooooon... Audition!

Did you sing it in your head? Then you're my people.

When I was in high school, I used to crow about how much I loved auditions. I liked reading about the play and the available parts and dreaming about what part might fit me. I thought it was great fun to wait with my friends to be called in, practicing the parts of the script the director gave us. I felt confident going in front of the production team, showing what I could do with cold reading lines or sight reading music. I lived for the feeling of hope and anticipation while waiting for the cast list to be posted.

Good lord, I was dumb.

Yes I know, that was unkind. I was a lot of things back then, but I wasn’t dumb. Naive, perhaps, and definitely privileged and protected. While I was certainly gifted in acting, singing, and performance in general, I was also a big fish in a small pond. There was never a time I didn’t get a part in the play. There were times I didn’t get the part I wanted; a few times disappointed in a chorus role, having had my eye on a juicy character part. However, the chorus was full of my friends and the social part of being a teenager made up for the lack of spotlight.

What changed? I often think about my junior year of college. I spent my first semester in London, studying acting and movement at The British American Drama Academy. While I felt confident during the first half of the experience, which was classroom-based, I bombed my audition for the end-of-term production and got a very small part. I realize now I was pretty depressed for the last month of that program, and it didn’t help that the auditions for the spring show back at Macalester happened while I was away, so I would not be in it.

I comforted myself that I would at least be able to audition for my friends who were taking Intro to Directing — I loved being in the brief, student-directed scenes. Unfortunately, I wasn’t cast in the first round… and was informed by a friend that I came into auditions too cocky, too familiar with the directors (again, all of them my friends) and they left me out. I tried to show humility for the second round, but I guess it wasn’t enough because I wasn’t chosen for those, either.

Senior year was much better, starting with being cast in a lead role in a gorgeous, rarely-done-at-Mac musical production. In the spring, however, I traveled to Chicago to audition for graduate school and had a nightmarish experience. Another round of rejection, and by the time I graduated my self-confidence was in the gutter. I held onto the narrative that I was going to be a professional actor for another 2-3 years, but I rarely went on auditions. I obviously wasn’t strong enough to handle the lifestyle.

Why am I choosing to tell this story now? Well, as the new director of the One Act Play for our high school, I held auditions a couple of days ago. At the same time, I auditioned myself for our local community production of Fiddler on the Roof. (Hence the title of my piece!) I cast the One Act Play last night, and we will have our first read-through after school today. Immediately following that rehearsal, I will head over to the theater to attend callback auditions for Fiddler. (Callbacks are a 2nd, closer look for the director to figure out who will get character roles in the show.)

Yes, I have decided to take on a lot at one time. No, the irony is not lost on me that I have chosen to put high school kids through the wringer at the same time I’m going through it myself. Watching them all read for me, with their nervous giggles and stammering line-readings, I felt like the worst kind of torturer. Having that kind of power over their fate while simultaneously putting my fate in the hands of another production team felt eight types of wrong.

Waiting to hear about a role after the audition is similar to waiting to hear about a job after the interview. Tom Petty was not wrong. While I battle to remain hopeful, I’ve been shot down enough in the last three decades (yikes!) that I can feel the discomfort in my stomach and the tightness in my shoulders. I don’t know how to get better at being rejected. I don’t know how to care less. I don’t think I’d be who I am if I did.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks for reading.

Love, Susie