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Monday, August 31, 2009

Auditions!

Let me make this very VERY clear. I am a theatre and psychology double major. The theatre requires all of their majors, minors, and scholarship holders to audition for all of their shows. THEATRE IS NOT ALL ABOUT ACTING! Is that clear? IT ISN'T ALL ABOUT DANCE! Theatre is about making art, not matter how you do it. Yes, acting is an aspect of theatre. So is dance. But behind the scenes, there are designers. What is an actor without his stage? What is an actor without the lights to support his emotions? Powerful things can be conveyed through these things. And what about the director? He or she plays a key role in the production of a play.
I am what they call a technical student. I am a designer in training. I have REALLY bad stage fright, which is kind of funny since I was in several MCT plays as a child. That said, I cannot possibly begin to convey how much I hate auditions. I get there, nervous that I won't be able to remember the words of one of my monologues, and the more I practice, the more my hands shake. The more my hands shake, the more I forget. And then the production managers call my name and I'm sure that I'm going to pass out after I forget the beginning of my piece. The production manager would lead me upstairs, and I would stand outside the door briefly trying to calm myself, and take deep breaths, both attempts failing miserably. Resigning myself to fate, I would let myself into the acting lab, letting the door swing shut behind me, overly conscious of the clank of wood against metal, and thinking maybe I should have stood by the door and closed it slowly. Taking a deep breath, I would greet the panel of professors/directors for this season's shows, and they would ask me a few questions about myself, and I would give the answers awkwardly, maybe stuttering some. Then they would ask if I was ready, and I would shakily say yes, even though I am SO not ready, and I would turn around, take a couple deep breaths, and launch into my monologue after I remembered the starting words. Not three words in, I would forget the next phrase, turn to the panel, announce that I was starting over, and re-begin, even more shaky and nervous than last time. After making it through the two standard pieces, they might ask me a couple more questions, and I would finally escape, glad to be done and hoping against all hope not to be cast. And I would nervously check the call-backs list over the next few days and find that I wasn't called back, and be relieved that I never have to public speak again.
Now, since last night, I have been trying to get out of this hell that they call auditions. I've emailed the panel, and the production managers, and finally resorted to a made-up excuse that I had to fill in for someone who got sick at work until an hour before auditions ended. The excuse wasn't necessary. I got out of auditions through an email saying that I was excused an hour before auditions started. Thank God.

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