Friday, May 8, 2009

A Hellish, hellish audition

Well, I think the opportunity has been missed so I think I’m safe to talk about this now.

I auditioned for Second City on Wednesday. I didn’t get a callback and that’s OK. However, and this is the way I’m trying to look at things these days, it was a hilarious experience.

I think they just opened the doors and let whoever wanted to audition in. I think that’s how things are marketed now: interest will be drummed up by letting a bunch of people audition and let all those people create buzz based on their own excitement. And ineptitude.

Anywho, I loved this audition. It wasn’t a good one for me, per se, but it was a great character study.

First, you walk into the main room and there’s a bunch of folks standing around, waiting to go in. There’s the normal posturing and nervousness. I’m fine with that. That’s pretty much any audition for anything. Then they call you into the room. It’s like a dance rehearsal room, mirrors on the wall, no windows, and a table with Second City folks and Alliance people. They politely nod while they sift through headshots and resumes and try to match you with your shot. I should add that the invitation into the room involved the intern standing at the door with it open and standing there looking at everyone like they’re assholes, which we kind of were. Anyway, him giving us attitude for not knowing that standing at the door meant we’re supposed to come in set the tone. We were not welcome. They were tired and tired of looking at people.

So we go in (3 guys, 3 girls) and we do a couple of quick warm-ups. Zip-zap-zop. Connecting with your scene partners by saying ‘hello’ and other phrases, really basic stuff. But some of the folks were already thrown by this. Bad sign number 2.

Then we have to line up and say one thing about ourselves. And bytheway, it can’t be related to theatre or performance. One lady said she was also a singer and song writer and writer. Um, OK, that’s sort of not related. The girl beside me said that her cat was just killed by her neighbor’s dog. She also added that she ‘didn’t have anything else about herself that wasn’t related to theatre.’ This is sad on many levels. One, her cat died. That sucks. I loves the animals and feel great empathy for them. Two, she had NOTHING in her life besides that cat that wasn’t related to theatre! That dog single-handedly removed her anchor to the outside world. She’s now spiralling into a theatrical oblivion with no connection to the rest of the world. Like The Flash when he was lost in time. Please, girl, find a hobby or a love interest or a TV show or a person in prison to become pen-pals with. Because theatre and performance are cool but you can’t show a life on stage if you have no life that doesn’t involve the stage. Get it?

Next we did short scenes. I should let you know, I’m not awesome at improv. I’m passable. I can be in a scene with a good person and do allright. I can be in a scene with a bad person and keep my head above water or sink horribly. That’s about it. I’m a B- improviser who probably didn’t deserve to be there. So first off they say two person short scenes. This means no involvement from a third or fourth person. So in the first scene, one lady immediately joins the scene, thus making it a three person scene. Bad omen numero 3. I liked this choice because I got to watch the people at the table makes faces. They were hilariously shocked. I’d be willing to bet they saw a graphic battle of bad improve that whole week, but I’d like to think we were a little better than the worst.

For my VERY FIRST SCENE, I got paired with the singer-song writer-writer. I decided to drink a cup of imaginary coffee. I make a slurpy noise to show I’m drinking. I hold my fingers in a way one holds a mug handle. I’m not Marcel Marceau but I get by. Anyway, she walks up, points at my hand and says, ‘what’s that?’ Now we’re experiencing a Pandora’s Box of bad omens. And so it went. She asked me what I was doing and what I was looking at until the scene mercifully ended. Singer? Maybe. Song-writer? Possibly. Writer? Doubtfully. Improviser? Unquestionably not. One of her scenes, she asked the dead cat girl to give her report on Barrack Obama and proceeded t just ask her questions about Barrack. Woo, that’s some good-bad improv.

Let’s just say the rest of the audition went about the same. One woman opened the scene by
yelling at me, “NO! NO! NO! NO!” and pretty much kept that motif through the rest of the scene. I hadn’t even done anything but hold a mimed gun (when I’m scared, I start scenes with mimed items, and these people scared me to no end). I don’t even think she saw the mimed gun. She just started screaming at me. And one point, she took the mime gun then gave it back to me and screamed No! Oh yeah, and one scene she just wanted to dance. I tried to start a convo with her but she just wanted to dance. So we danced.

There were two guys in my group who knew each other. They had chemistry and experience together. I didn’t share that chemistry with them but I thought they did pretty well together. My last scene was with one of them but he and I couldn’t get on the same page. We were supposed to be backstage at an opera house. When I saw him, I got excited and asked for his autograph to which he said, “Why, because I’m the guy who designed this building?” He might have felt pimped because I tried to make him into an opera singer and he didn’t want to do that. I dunno. Things had pretty much tanked for me anyway.

Still, a couple of ladies I know made it to callbacks, and that’s cool. And my friend Jo-Jo reminded me that it’s cool to audition for Second City if nothing else. And now I have this keen story about being stuck in the third level of Dante’s Inferno, which is being stuck in a room with no windows and watching bad improv and being forced to perform it.

2 comments:

mamaevel said...

oh man...your audition story is WAY more interesting than mine.

there was nothing i liked better than bad auditions when i was the afore-mentioned snobby intern (although, i don't believe i was ever snobby, thankyouverymuch). watching all of these auditions would have made me happy for months, Months i tell you.

i'm proud of you for getting out there and trying. it's a crap-shoot for these kinds of things, and seems like you got crapped on. but it makes for a really kick-ass story.

mmyers said...

I dunno, your's has the possibility of being way more interesting than mine, considering you could get in. I'm crossing my fingers fo ya.

I would have wanted to have the freedom to giggle if I was in the room and auditioning people.

Yeah, it's a good story that I can make longer or shorter as need be.