Meeting (Your Own) Expectations

So as you most likely know from my various Facebook posts, Monday was my Stagesource audition. It did not go as I expected it would, which is not to say it went poorly, but I did learn some important lessons and some things I could have done better. I did get to the BCA nice and early, which was good, I was there over an hour before my appointed time so I had ample time to chill out. Something I forgot to do however was eat properly. I'd had a decent meal earlier in the day, but by the time five o'clock rolled around and my audition was nigh my stomach was almost growling, which is not good. Why? Well I guess everybody is different, I've heard that some stand ups need to be somewhat uncomfortable to do their best performing but I think that's because stand up inherently comes from a place of tension, whereas stage performance is the lack there of. So that was a distraction, and I think it aided in sinking my first piece, which was my at this point defacto comic monologue from Eric Bogosian's "Suburbia". It's pretty lewd, but usually effective. When I got into the room though, I saw the set to Company One's Hookman looming over me, and I was indecisive as to where I should plant myself in relationship to it (if I could give one major note to the Stagesource folks, neither time when I've done it was it clear to me where the lighting in the room was strongest and it would be nice to have a sense of focused lighting in the performance area instead of the very general, kind of dim room light of Rehearsal Hall A). This indecision further threw off my already not spot on energy and when I went into my slate I stumbled through it a little, then as I went into the first piece, the piece that I felt confident I'd be hitting out of the park because I'd done it so many times successfully my energy kind of petered out, I felt the auditors shutting down and it just kind of went limp. At least that was my perception at the time. Near the end, I was able to get a few sort of chortles, then I gave a little nod to signify it was over and launched into my next piece...

Before I get there though, let's look at those moments. Things I could not have controlled were the set up of the room, which threw me for a loop. Also, the stage manager pulled me straight from the green room and I had no heads up I would be on deck, which isn't anybody's fault and probably was because they were running behind (another factor out of my control) but I could have used the time of the previous auditioner to steady myself and really focus. But I should have been doing that the entire time regardless. Also as I mentioned before, the whole day was a little behind schedule and it was 5 o'clock with the auditors having just come off a smoke break. So, if I was depending on some of the energy in the room to help power my piece it being comedic and that being how I tend to work with comedic material that wasn't going to happen.

All of which could have been subverted, had I prepared it better! Instead, I put the little time I did spend preparing into my second piece, an excerpt from Measure For Measure. You know, the one where Claudio begs his sister for his life. I found I went on an interesting journey with this piece. I enlisted the help of a director friend of mine (Thanks Scott!) and we tried out various "key signatures", that is to say levels of intensity, energy, movement, etc. In the end, we took it inward, removing all the gesturing, gesticulating and vocal variety I'd tried using to get into the life or death stakes of the piece and focused all of my energy into the act of just talking to my sister as if she were a real person. This is what I call "cutting out the bullshit" and it worked for me. Sometimes it works if I go in sort of the opposite direction, if you'd seen Our Town or Swimming in the Shallows or when I played Elbow in Measure for Measure those were all highly vibrant, colorful characters. My other piece is supposed to showcase this aspect of my work. Sometimes though, we forgot that most often in real life people just talk to other people directly and as human beings, so that's what we went for in this monologue. It did have a nice key change from when Claudio goes from describing the potential torments of the afterlife, to the more humanistic argument that his sister saving him trumped all over existing forms of morality and would become a virtuous act. So I played all that, and I felt like it went much better.

But who knows! At this point, it's totally out of my control and that's the actor's life. If nothing else, 40 copies of my headshot and resume are out in the world and that must be a good thing. And I learned a few lessons, if your going to be at an audition for a long time make sure you've eaten beforehand or if it's going to be a really long time bring a snack. Don't let anything throw you off, as soon as you know you might be on anytime soon start focusing in and don't stop. Then when you get in the room, let nothing break that focus. Oh and the most important thing, PREPARE YOUR SHIT. This year I tried to tell myself via this blog that I would do better than I did last year and actually I do think that I did but not as well as I would have liked or was capable of. In the end, that was my lack of preparation. And you know, that happened because I was so busy acting already. So I can't really complain, as long as I from moment to moment am getting better than in some sense I'm winning, I think.

Just remember dear readers, control what is under your control and everything that's not forget about.

Preparation!

It's February, and this year that means that Stagesource just did it's lottery thing and assigned time slots to actors participating in their annual auditions. That's right ladies and gentleman! Coming to you this April, the biggest and most important cattle call of the year!

Actually though, they are a pretty big deal, and can make a big difference for an up and coming actor in the next year of work if you can do a good enough audition with the right people in the room. Of course, like everything acting related, there are so many things out of one's control that can if you allow them to, turn the event into an exercise in frustration. Even if a company is casting a show which you would be a great fit for say, it's pretty up in the air if they'll be in the room when you go up. I mean I think these auditions last like ten hours on both days, and most people understandably just don't have that kind of stamina. And like any audition, there are certain things you can control, what did you eat the day of, are you get well rested, are you dressed appropriately, did you prepare prepare prepare. But then if someone cuts you off and gives you the finger on your way over? You spill coffee on yourself? The neighbor's dog keeps you up half the night and your cranky this morning? You can't control any of that! You can't control how the room will be set up. You can't control people using their cell phones. You can't control the person before you doing a screamfest of an audition about... I don't know, watching their dog get raped by aliens (if you are reading this and wondering what kind of piece to do, don't do anything with screaming or about sexual violence, just don't do it). Or alternatively you can't control the person before you killing with their comedic chops and making you look bad.

All the things you can't control! Of course fellow actors you know this. And the best thing you can do is carefully choose pieces that showcase you and which you have fun doing, prepare the hell out of them, and act the hell out of them. So that's where I'm at, the first step which is choosing material. Of course I have a stock of monologues I can do... but those have been shown around town. BUT I know I can do them really well. Then again, there are other monologues I've been wanting to get down to working on and should I take this opportunity to really polish a new piece or two that won't have been seen by anyone before? Who do I go to for potential monologue coaching? I need to start figuring this stuff out. Because last year I was not as well prepared as I could have been, and my presentation suffered for it. That's OK though, because if you've done Stagesource or any cattle call of that nature you know they are a different animal then your typical audition, two or three or four people at a table in a room and that's it. This is bigger, higher stakes, etc. You probably won't nail it on your first try. But this is my second attempt, and that is my objective. Nail that shit. Calderwood Pavilion, April 2nd 5 o'clock... here I come.