You better sit down for this one.
Comfortable?
And off we go.
With Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? not panning out, I thought another season had come to its end. Luckily, I had things to keep me occupied. A potentially good opportunity for my real life had dropped into my lap and I began pursuing it, though things seemed to cool off after a promising start. Then I got a message from Sonia Keffer saying that she hoped to see me at auditions for Sabrina Fair which she would be directing for the Bellevue Little Theatre. Since my opportunity appeared to have evaporated, I decided to audition.
Sabrina Fair will go down as one of my personal favorite auditions. There were two roles suitable for a gentleman of my age. One was David Larrabee, the younger son of the powerful Larrabee family who marries and divorces at the drop of a hat. The other was Linus Larrabee, Jr., the older son and the CEO of the family business.
Of the two roles, Linus was by far the more interesting and very anti-me. Linus is a bit insufferable, emotionless, and completely dedicated to making a profit. He does care for his family and is concerned about doing what’s best for them, but goes about doing it in ways that make him seem a little shady. At least, that’s what I gleaned from the character from the little bits I read.
I had a ball with the character and just let loose. I rank it as one of my top five reads as I was engaged, moving, and just having fun. Sonia said words which I shall always treasure after the audition. She said, “You really surprised me up there. You’ve got more than a little Linus in you.”
Without aiming for it, I had accomplished another goal in theatre. I had finally convinced a director that I was capable of playing a role that was outside my real personality. It felt really good. That was Sunday night.
On Monday night, nothing happened.
Then came Tuesday.
On Tuesday morning, I finally heard back about my personal opportunity and the other party was still quite interested in going forward. That provided a bit of a dilemma for me as there would not be a way for me to have my cake and eat it, too. If I were cast and did the show, I’d lose out on the opportunity. If I pursued the opportunity, I’d have to give up the show as my weeknights would get eaten up. What to do? What to do?
Ultimately, my real life won out. Theatre isn’t going anywhere and there will always be another show and I had to take a chance on the other opportunity. Having made my decision and since casting decisions had not been announced yet, I decided I would write Sonia a quick note after work letting her know that I would have to withdraw myself from consideration.
Now I had forgotten my phone that morning which would become important later. I ended up getting home very late that Tuesday and prepared to write a little note to Sonia. Then I checked my phone and Sonia had left me a message. D’oh!!
At that point it was too late to return the call, so I decided to call her the next day. But when I checked Facebook, I saw Sonia had messaged me on there as well. I didn’t want to leave her hanging, so I wrote her a quick note letting her know what had happened and that I would call her tomorrow.
We had a good conversation the next day and she voiced the same thoughts I had that real life had to come first and theatre would always be there. She did say that my withdrawal had broken her heart and if you think it was because she was going to offer me the role of Linus, you’d be right. I told her that would have been nice, but thanked her for the opportunity and told her I looked forward to working with her again. I also offered to use my website to help promote the show if she wanted to send any press releases my way. Sonia said she’d hope I would come see the show which I certainly will do so I can put the power of the pen behind it.
On Thursday I began my little B & B sojourn and on Friday morning I made a most shocking realization.
I was not upset by having had to give up the show.
If you’re standing, I bet you’re sitting. And if you’re sitting, I bet you exploded up from your seat.
Don’t get me wrong. I was a little disappointed by having had to give it up, but I know me and my regular readers know how ardently I’ve pursued acting for the past 20 years. Not that long ago, having had to give up a role, not to mention a leading role, would have devastated me. But, relatively speaking, I actually felt pretty good about the whole thing and that’s when I understood the full extent of the miracle granted to me by Leaving Iowa.
Leaving Iowa did much, much more than irrevocably restore my confidence in myself as an actor. It also scratched my itch good and proper. I realized that over the past 2 years, I had only auditioned 6 times. In years gone by, I would have auditioned that many times in just one season. I was further stunned to realize that, with the exceptions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sabrina Fair, the shows didn’t have the heft of my heart behind them. My acting mojo simply had not been there as Leaving Iowa had satisfied me so thoroughly.
Through this website, I had managed to stay involved in theatre without having to act. And I had, and have, been ecstatically happy serving as theatre’s champion by giving notice to shows that might otherwise have been ignored by the local papers and writing good, solid reviews for the public.
When you add that to my growing interest in directing and wanting to shadow someone for that, I realized there was something I needed to give to myself that I had not yet done.
It’s time for a break. . .at least, that was what I thought when I originally began writing this article.
I had planned to announce that I was going to take a season’s break from the acting side of things next year, but it seems that Sabrina Fair did a little magic of its own and I can feel the creative juices stirring again. So I don’t think I’ll be taking a break, per se, but I will slow things down a bit so I can attempt to learn a thing or two about directing.
It’s a bit ironic that I called this series the “Season of Change” because the biggest changes were with me and, most assuredly, for the better.
Sadly, this story ends this season’s theatre tales. But I’ll be back soon when I begin the “Season of Exploration”.
As always, until the next time.
Chris' Corner 