Thursday, March 22nd 2012 was shaping up to be One Terrible Mofo of a Day.
All my auditions and my hard-to-procure doctor appointment were managing to occur at the same time. This was not going to go well.
I chose my priorities.
I would attend the film audition first, medical needs be damned. It was for a major film by director Jason Reitman (of Juno and Up In The Air fame) starring Kate Winslet (of lots of stuff fame).
I would read for three parts in the film…all newscasters. A dream audition because I was a newscaster for 15 years. I Speak Newscaster. I have The Special Newscaster Voice. I do that special Newscaster Inflection+Look Thing that says: I Am Journalist, Hear My Gravitas.
So I weave my Voice/Inflection/Newscastery magic for the casting director, hoping for the best. The audition feels really good, but you walk away from a whole lot of auditions around New York feeling “really good” and that’s all you get out of most of them, so….
This is when things take a downturn.
I make it to my doctor’s appointment (and by “make”, I mean show up 45 minutes late and they’re nice enough to still see me). The news is BAD. My broken pinky toe – which should be fully healed by now – is still broken. Brokener, in fact. Because the BONE IS ERODING. My freaking toe is disintegrating in there! This makes me incredibly angry and frustrated and victimy (oh no! not victimy!) Instantly, I am all sorts of snarly adjectives.
I’m told my situation is rare. Of course it is. Special me. My pinky shall require heroic measures. And oh by the way I can’t resume my regular exercise regimen for MONTHS. While my pinky becomes a flaccid, boneless skin flap, so shall my body. Special me!
At this point, I am in a Code Orange stage of rage. And in THIS state, I reach my last audition of the day.
For the first time since arriving in New York, the audition sign-up room doesn’t feel like the inside of an egg. And by that, I mean it’s not exploding with people. You know how an egg with the yolk inside is full with no space to spare? This room is anything but eggy. It’s just me and the lonely audition monitor.
I leisurely peruse the audition script while luxuriously taking up at least three chairs. I actually feel the air conditioning. Slowly, my blood pressure drops as I work hard to focus on the script in my hands and not my nightmare toe.
March 22nd is about to get odd.
I audition for the large team assembled in the small room:
I perform the script, which conveniently channels my toe grief.
Then I sing a song.
Then another.
Then the same song slightly differently.
Then I ad lib harmonies to My Girl, which has absolutely positively nothing to do with the show in any way imaginable.
Then the people at the long table in the short room start asking questions that make it clear that if I want this part, I will have to sacrifice my Disney cruise (sailing in 3 days) and an already-booked trip to Miami to pack and move my household to New York.
The thought of breaking this news to my husband way overshadows any thrill at the possibility of booking my first Off Broadway show. Seriously. This husband has already made a considerably big stink about my “abandoning” him during a prior move. This would not go over well. So standing before this Off Broadway Creative Team, I hedge, hem and haw about my willingness to cancel my life plans.
What?!? You did WHAT?!?! What happened next!??!?
(This is what I imagine you, the reader, yelling at me. Although you may actually be very calm. Thing is, you’re obscured from where I’m sitting.)
Well, I shan’t make a long story even longer. Cue the finale!
March 22nd – my timing-challenged, anger-stricken day of snarly-adjectived feelings – turned out to be One Great Day.
I booked the Off Broadway musical! And I booked the big movie! My toe took its sweet time to heal, but heal it did, four months later.
March 22nd 2012, you sneaky lucky day you!
The moral of my story (I imagine you asking)?
For me, it’s a simple reminder to stay focused. Keep walking into audition rooms, eggy or not. Never let despair rule the day. Little things heal.
And it’s a revelation that One Great Day is tricky because it can totally impersonate One Bad Day.
