Sunday, August 17, 2014

"Are you nervous?"

My test is forthcoming, and everyone is pretty excited for me. There are more than a few people who want to come see, but I've explained that it's not only fairly boring, but I don't know the time to arrive. Don't sweat it, I'm taking their well-wishes with me.

I'm not exactly nervous. I'm anxious, but not nervous. Frankly, it feels just like an audition.

I'm remembering a particularly hard audition during High School. It was for a spot at a prestigious Arts School, a summer intensive thing, and all of us knew which two kids were getting in. No one else was bothering to even try.

I decided to go for it. I prepped up one of my favorite monologues, worked out some risky blocking, and set forth. Everyone told me I was nuts. Why bother, they said. You know you won't get in, it's been decided who will go to that school. Besides, you work backstage.

Maybe, I said. But I'm going to give these bitches a run for their money.

I was the first to go. Not a good sign. I stood up in front of three people I'd never seen before and never said a word to me, and performed my guts out. I was tired at the end of it, and it was comedy. I heard my instructor gasp audibly as a did the unthinkable and turned my back to the panel, but then he calmed as my move made sense.

My act required me to dash out of the room, so I had to walk back in to hear their critique. They were nice enough, but it was clear that i wasn't who they had come to see. I thanked them and left, having to walk by the two kids who were the shoo-ins.

Two days later, the announcement was made, and I did not make the school. I was not surprised. But my teacher pulled me aside and asked me why I had done it. I gave the excuse that it was an open audition, and any audition experience was good experience. He looked at me sideways, and said that I had made a very good impression on the panel, but I just wasn't right for it.

I must have made some snarky comment and walked off, but things were not the same for me after that. I had some stage cred, because I had tried. Everyone else had shrugged and walked off, but I tried.

I think that's what I carried from that experience. Try. Even if you don't make it, try. Give those bitches some competition, and give it all you've got.

I'm excited.

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