Callbacks

"You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I'll come running..."

-- James Taylor, "You've Got a Friend"

--

The Auditions. They came and went, as they do. We saw a total of 230 people in four days, or fifteen hours. Dealing with children on a daily basis is one thing; it's another thing entirely to deal with their parents. I made some notes throughout the four-day ordeal that I find quite amusing.

- Moms tend to bring reading material more often than dads. Of the nineteen moms who brought books with them, six of them were reading James Patterson, four had books by either Nora Roberts or Mary Higgins Clark, three brought along some Dan Brown, and two were engrossed in Alice Sebold. The other two were reading books whose authors I couldn't decipher, but one of them was definitely a steamy novel.

- Kids who have auditioned for this company most also have the most nervous tension. I don't know if they know they have something to prove, or what, but kids whom I had seen at camp or on stage had their knees bouncing and their fingers sweating.

- You can always--always--tell who isn't going to be prepared (they forgot their sheet music, they don't have a headshot). They avoid eye contact and they keep their parents close. They also tend to have the most questions.

- Few people really respect company policy. They believe those rules apply to all others besides them. So if the callback notice states that you will know by the end of the audition whether you are called back, most rejected people will want to wait around as if expecting the directors to change their minds. This is not "American Idol," folks, and there is no camera crew waiting to document your struggle to get to the next round. This sounds harsh, but no one cares once you've left the room what you say or do. We have auditions to run. To use a phrase whose beauty I learned all too well in college, "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

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The Callbacks. Tonight was the first night. I read and sang for Lefou and Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast, Jr., and honestly have no clue as to which role (if either) I'll receive. Sometimes I feel like it's awfully sad, me, a college grad with a decent mound of professional experience, competing for roles against sixteen-year-olds. But then again, this is the highest paying non-Equity acting work in the city, so who am I to complain?

I should start stretching again, though, that's for sure. My feet feel rubberized, my knees and thighs like torn metal. Or something like that. I really should have started stretching weeks ago. It's been a long time since the last modern dance concert I was in.

It's a funny thing, too, working at the children's theatre. Work in that office is full of, to borrow the line from Wilder, "Like usual: babies acting like growed-ups; growed-ups acting like babies."

--

The Commercial. Got a phone call while helping my boss write a play. I got directions and a skinny on the situation, and I drove down to the warehouse/studio on Pete Rose Way, to read for a part in a commercial.

Now, the specifics of the commercial I'd better keep under wraps, but the basic setup was that they had hired some guy to play the bagger/cashier character and he had turned out to be a complete dud. (Apparently, the director kept having to explain comic timing, resorting to dissection of jokes and the like.) So the grocery-store people said no. They were upset, the film crew was upset, the ad agency was upset, the grocery-store higher-ups were upset, and my talent agency (who provided the guy in the first place) was upset.

Enter me.

I walked in there with nothing but a resume and a smile, and in front of the camera I went. We rehearsed the shot while waiting for the grocery-store people. Long story short, they loved working with me, if for no other reason than a theatre background affords an actor the ability to make clear, strong choices quickly, and to take direction without question.

I find out tomorrow whether I get the shot, which pays quite well. Quite. Well.

The only drawback is that the shoot will take place overnight between this Wednesday and Thursday, after my third straight night of callbacks. So (theoretically) I'll go from musical theatre with children and teens, to a warehouse near the river where I'll repeat my perfected quizzical query, "Paper or plastic?" until someone in the room says, "Cut."

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The Job. Last and most important, I landed the job with the Covedale Performing Arts Center. Starting in October, I will fill the new position of Coordinator of the After-School Drama Program. I meet with the people who run the Covedale, the Perrinos, on Thursday to discuss a strategy for the first ten classes.

I know it's late and I'm tired and it's far too early to say what I am about to say, but I'll say it anyway: I feel like I'm conquering Cincinnati.