Friday the 13th

What a horror this day has been so far!

A bit of a preface - in my ever-expanding search for employment, I have started looking at casting notices and trying to get auditions. After all, now's as good a time as any for that sort of thing! Earlier this week I received two emails from a particular theater company here in LA, inviting me to two separate auditions: one for a certain play, and one to become a general member of their company. Sweet!

Except that I didn't read them very carefully, and completely missed the audition for the play. Now, this wasn't as tragic as it could have been, since they said in the email that if I was unable to make the audition I could simply attend the call-backs on Saturday, but still. That's just bad business on my part.

So I started preparation for my general audition, which entailed learning a contemporary monologue. For someone like me who's more accustomed to learning Shakespeare, it didn't seem like it should be much of a problem. I flipped through a book of monologues, picked one that seemed funny and could show off my comedy chops, and got started trying to learn it and make a few acting choices.

And then I read the email again. After several hours of learning this comedy monologue, I realized that the monologue was supposed to be 2 minutes or less, and this one was closer to 4. Back to the drawing board!

I selected a different monologue, one that seemed dangerously familiar, and got to work on it. I say "dangerously familiar" because I had learned (and subsequently forgotten) it several years ago, but I was vaguely familiar enough with it that I didn't have the sense of urgency with regards to learning it - surely that level of comfort means I know it, right?

Wrong, but whatever. After some half-assed attempts, I actually did more or less know the thing, and thought I could make a good impression with it for my audition today.

Which brings us to Friday the 13th.

I woke up early this morning, figuring I should probably take a little extra time to get my head screwed on straight, get my voice all warmed up, and maybe run the monologue a few times before heading off to the 11:00 audition. I did all of the above the best that I could, and my head felt totally calm, although my stomach begged to differ. Either way, 10:30 rolled around and I headed out, determined to give it my best shot. I found the theater (which, much to my surprise, was located in a strip mall), parked, re-parked when I realized I was in the wrong part of the garage, and headed upstairs, taking deep breaths as I went. There were a few people milling about outside the theater, and two in the lobby, so I pulled the door open and bravely went inside.

"Can I help you?" one of them said, which was, coincidentally, a line right out of my monologue. And, just like the character in the monologue, I froze. Something in the way she said it meant I had absolutely no business there.

"Audition?" I managed to croak out.

The woman looked at me funny. "Here?" she asked?

I looked at the sign. Yes, this was the right place. "Yep. At least, I think so."

She called to someone inside. "Do you know anything about an audition?"

The other woman came out to the lobby. "For...?"

"Uh, the company?" I said, really hoping I would spontaneously combust.

"Oh," the woman said, finally clear, "that's at 12:45!"

I was mortified. "Oh! Oh, um, sorry! Guess I'll -" and I practically ran out the door. When I got home, still mortified, and checked the email for the third time, I realized that the woman was absolutely correct, and that I'd mixed up the time for the Saturday call-back with today's audition. And did I regroup, get myself together, and go back? No, I did not. I thought about it, I considered it long and hard, and at one point I thought I absolutely would, but in the end I realized that if I'm having this many issues with getting the simplest thing right today, I probably shouldn't go and try to make a good first (give or take) impression on this company. It can only end in tears.