A week ago on Stagesource, Stoneham Theatre posted an audition notice for Mercutio in their production of Romeo and Juliet. You might have seen the posting, I mentioned it to my friend Chris at a rehearsal for R&G Are Dead as I started to explain it's contents he said "of course it was on Stagesource, it's a Thursday of course I checked Stagesource, even though I'm committed to all these different things, what if there was something better!" Sidetracked, I just thought that was funny. Anyway of course I responded, because I knew Stoneham was doing R&J with age appropriate actors and I'd submitted for it but I think at the time they were looking for specifically high school aged actors, which although I can play high school aged, I am of course not. So when I saw the posting, I got excited and jumped to respond. One of my goals professionally is to do more Shakespeare, another one of my goals is to be cast in an equity show. Both of these are things that I'll achieve eventually, I don't doubt that I'll get there. This would achieve two of those goals, however, and in the form of one of those roles that I'd really love to sink my teeth into, one of Shakespeare's great comic parts.
I recieved a response within... twelve hours at least, and looked at the requirements. They'd asked for actors to either prepare the Queen Mab speech or R&J Act II scene i between Benvolio and Mercutio directly before the balcony scene. I chose Queen Mab, pulled my Arden off the shelf, and started going over it, untangling all of the crazy images of the speech and their meaning. I also shot off an email to my fantastic acting coach, who although she was directing a show about to go up at Stoneham I'd hoped would have some time to help with the piece. She did, over the weekend I continued reviewing it, I met with her on Monday and we broke it down. All of the things I didn't get, the pronunciations I had wrong, etc, she helped me with, we broke down into it's parts and found specific things about those parts and made a nice big comic showpiece of the speech. I felt really good about our work together, and I set about memorizing it as much as possible.
Tuesday I continued working on it, although not as diligently as I could have.
Wednesday, yesterday, was the big day. On the train ride to Melrose to meet my Mom who would then take me to the theatre for my 5 PM audition, I reviewed the speech and found that I had it pretty well and good in my brain, I thought. I was just at the point where I could recite it to myself, image to image, without looking at the paper, I was just right at that point. I got to the theatre, my mouth was dry. I went to the bathroom, drank some water from the faucet (there might have been a water fountain I didn't see one), and gargled cause isn't that a thing you do? I filled out the form, which the other two fellows and one lady (they were open to cross casting) directed me to, and waited. The girl went in before me. She was also doing Queen Mab. At the time I judged her piece before moving to another section of hallway where I wouldn't hear it, but without seeing it what can one really tell? Not much. She finished, I went in, introduced myself and then BOOM "Ohhhhhh I see QUEEN MAB has been with you!" and on from there. I thought the piece was going well, I was focused on my imaginary Romeo but caught a few glimpses of their faces. They seemed engaged, with a look of either fascination or horror or SOMETHING (let's say fascination), and I continued through what I'd prepared, through the intro, into the description of the chariot's components, into where Queen Mab rides and then... what does she ride over? Knees? Fingers? Lips? I'd lost my place! I went blank, stopped, "Annnnd I lost my place" I admitted somewhat sheepishly with a smile, which got a chuckle, pulled out my paper found where I was and continued. Of course I lost some momentum, became a little more self conscious then I had been, but got back on track and finished. Then they said "Thank you!" I said thank you back.... and left.
I suppose it could have gone better. I could have not went up on that line, I could have learned the speech a little bit better to prepare for that possibility. I could have been a little more spontaneous, I'm worried that my comic gesturing may have come off as planned or calculated and not as "in the moment" as I know I'm capable of. None of that really matters. That is a hard ass speech, and I prepared it in a week and delivered... Mike Handelman! Doing Queen Mab! As best as I could. I would not say I was anything other than myself in that audition. And especially for a character actor, yourself is the most you can be. The question is, how did I deliver technically (pretty well, overall I thought) and as a character actor, do I fit in with their idea of what they want their Mercutio to be? I would say I would be a very capable, entertaining and interesting Mercutio (IMHO as unhumble as that might sound) but nor am I an obvious choice for the role. I'd allowed myself to become invested in it, again two career goals in one, but now that it's over I'm at peace with whatever the result happens to be. As is necessary in the life of an actor, I've resigned myself to not getting the part, to getting a "thank you, but no" email or no contact at all. Those of you who are non actors might think that's pessimistic, but it's just the reality.
Knowing that I'm not an obvious choice for the role and probably wouldn't be getting it, I came into it thinking I would treat the experience as an exercise. The result of which would be, if nothing else, a comprehensive blog post on my experience preparing for and executing an audition piece, for posterity and viewing later on after I've done a whole bunch of Shakespeare and equity shows I can say "oh yeah I remember that one audition, back when I first learned Queen Mab..."
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