“When are we going to see you on stage again?”
You’d be surprised at how often I’ve heard that question recently.
“The next time I audition” is what I would like to say, but, as my regular readers have learned, we actors have very little control over when we get our next role.
“When a role I want intersects with a director seeing me in said role,” might be a little closer to the mark, but I still don’t think it’s the right answer. It’s also a mouthful to say.
I have the answer, but I’ll wait until the end to reveal it.
It’s been a while since I’ve had enough tales built up to merit writing an entry, but this season and the close of last season have provided some pretty interesting fare.
It began late last season with auditions for One Man, Two Guvnors over at the Omaha Community Playhouse and guest directed by Anthony Clark-Kaczmarek.
This is a modern day rewrite of A Servant of Two Masters and tells the story of Francis Henshall, a minder (British slang for bodyguard), lackey, and all around gofer for two criminals and his desperate shenanigans to prevent the two bosses from ever meeting.
There was only one role I really wanted in this show and that was Alan Dangle, a wannabe actor who is constantly on and a pretty poor performer to boot. With a lot of Omaha’s finest auditioning for this one, I figured there would be a lot of good playing around at this audition.
While that may have been true, it simply wasn’t going to be true for me. My instincts were on target. A sad pity that my execution was not. The vision in my head did not match the interpretation coming out of my mouth. I had stumbled getting out of the gate and never managed to regain lost ground.
I didn’t even hold a faint glimmer of hope about this one. I actually had a weird sense of satisfaction being able to look into a mirror and saying, “Hey, buddy. That one was all on you” after I got the rejection. After years of being rejected for reasons other than my prowess, it was almost refreshing to know I was the cause of my own downfall.
Then came this season. My defeat in One Man, Two Guvnors was a return to my roots in the wrong way albeit an oddly satisfying wrong, but now I was getting back to the right way with the most auditions I had done in quite a long time.
I would begin with the OCP’s season premiere of Sweat which would be guest directed by Susie Baer-Collins.
Sweat is inspired by the story of Reading, Pennsylvania. This steel mill town went from being one of the most prosperous in the country to one of the poorest due to the Great Recession. The play focuses on the employees of a steel mill and the bar where they enjoy hanging out. The steel mill employees are lifers looking towards fat pensions at their retirements. When the recession strikes, the employees go from looking at lucrative pensions to unemployment. As things go from bad to worse, tensions rise and racism rears its ugly face until the show’s devastating conclusion.
Now this sounded like a great show. But I was up against stiff circumstances. There were only roles for 2 Caucasian actors and I fell right in between their ages. The younger one was completely out of the question. Even with my unusually youthful features, my hair and hairline were going to put me out of the running. However, I hoped they might prove helpful in playing the older man who was suggested to be in his fifties, but I was hoping that maybe he could be bought as a man in his mid to late 40s at a push.
That idea was quickly blasted when I read the line that stated he had been on the floor for 28 years before an injury ended his mill career. I still had fun with the read as it was a different character from my real personality: rougher and coarser. I think I even stunned Susie a bit with my take as she looked at me with a surprised look in her eyes as she walked me out of the room and said, “Good job!” with a bit of wonderment in her voice.
To no shock at all, I wasn’t cast.
Next on my list was the Blue Barn Christmas show, A Very Die Hard Christmas which would mark my first audition with the theatre and Susan Clement-Toberer in five years.
Believe it or not, I have never seen Die Hard in its entirety, though I have seen enough of it to know the story. Not that it mattered because the character I wanted to play was original to the script and that was the Narrator.
Imagine a role where you just rattle off variations of Twas the Night Before Christmas, sing at inappropriate moments, and just react to the lunacy going on around you while being somewhat separate from it. This would be a role of great fun.
Even better, the Blue Barn was planning something a bit different this time. Not only did they want you to sign up for an audition time, but they were encouraging actors to bring monologues. At last!! The moment for which I had been waiting.
I’ve long kept a secret weapon for just this opportunity. A monologue from one of my favorite plays that’s guaranteed to make any director who knows me see me in a brand new way. To make sure the monologue would be in top form, I revealed the weapon to my friend and ace director, Lara Marsh, who spent an afternoon helping me to polish and refine it. I was even amazed by the new discoveries made during the process.
The day of the audition arrived and I was practically bursting with excitement though I kept a cool exterior. I arrived in plenty of time for my 3pm audition which allowed me to engage in some small talk with friends and acquaintances and then the auditions started. Though I had been expecting to read at 3pm, I didn’t actually get to read until 4:10pm. But the extra time gave me an opportunity to run through my monologue again and center myself.
When I was on deck to audition, I was handed a side for the Narrator by Blue Barn’s dramaturg, Barry Carman. I was surprised as I thought they wanted monologues. But I figured I’d be asked about it once I got inside.
I entered the theatre and met a group consisting of Susan, Susie Baer-Collins, Barry, and Hughston Walkinshaw who would be playing the role of Hans Gruber in the play. I nailed the read to the floor, managing to infuse a bit of my sheepish humor into the character. Susan said, “That was really awesome, Chris (pause as she thinks for a moment). I may or may not be having callbacks for this one. But you know how things run here and you know I know you” before thanking me for coming. For a brief moment, I thought I should ask if she would like to hear the monologue, but I pushed it aside, deciding that the idea must have been scrapped. I was happy with my read and thought I had a good chance based on its strength.
In hindsight, I wish I had obeyed my instinct.
That Friday, I had a thoroughly wretched day. I mean it was foul! When I got home, I started to open my mailbox and stopped. I just had this terrible notion that my day was about to end on an awfully sour note. I told God that I feared my rejection was in there and asked if it were possible to please hold off for one day if I was rejected just so I could end the day somewhat easier in mind.
I opened the mailbox and saw one letter. I grabbed it and slowly turned it to face me to see the Blue Barn stationery.
I exhaled a mighty sigh. I really didn’t want to open the envelope, but did in the faint hopes that maybe it would be a personalized rejection to help cushion the blow. It wasn’t.
“That’s it. I’m going to bed,” I thought to myself.
I admit it. This one got to me. I really wanted to be part of this project and thought I had a good chance of being involved and the rapidity of my defeat got me in the breadbasket. As I laid down on my bed, I wondered what might have happened had I brought up the monologue. Getting to perform it may not have altered the result. Heck, I may not have even been permitted to read it. But, in either case, at least I would have known that I had my biggest and best bite at the apple as dictated by the circumstances. On the plus side, I do have it in my back pocket for the future.
My next audition (more than likely, my last of the season) was a real return to my roots. It marked my first audition for the Brigit St Brigit Theatre Company in. . .I couldn’t tell you how long. It also marked my first audition for Scott Kurz since he originally read me for Dracula all the way back in 2003.
BSB’s holiday show was going to be a night of one acts capped with an original version of The Monsters are Due on Maple Street which was being reimagined by Scott. I was looking forward to this one as I’m a big fan of the works of Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone.
My audition night came and I was up for the game and feeling good. I shook Scott’s hand and began filling out the audition form. As I scanned the top, I did a double take. I looked away and blinked. Then I looked at the form again.
According to the website the show was supposed to end on December 15, but the form said the last day was going to be Dec 22. I asked Scott if the dates had been changed. He said there had been an issue scheduling the show with the venue holding it and it had to be pushed back a week. Internally, I crumbled. I had to sheepishly admit that I had to fly out to Phoenix at 8am on Dec 22. Scott seemed just as bummed as I felt. I offered to stay as an extra body so Scott could have another reader and he thought that was a good idea.
With no stakes to speak of, my reads lacked the full power of my heart. Not to say they were bad. On the contrary, technically I was solid. There were a few characters that didn’t feel quite right, but I loved my takes on Tommy who I reimagined as an autistic man and as the mysterious boss figure to whom I gave a quiet malevolence and a slight edge of insanity.
Scott had said he’d send e-mails out by the end of the week, but it ended up being two weeks later. A lot had changed in that interim as Scott had informed us that The Twilight Zone was experiencing another burst in popularity and ten classic episodes were being released to the big screen in November, one of which was “Monsters”. As such, CBS would not release performance rights.
Scott spent that two weeks searching for a new show and found it, but wanted to ask if actors still wanted to be part of it. Due to my inescapable conflict, I formally took myself out of the running though I suspect my conflict had outed me anyway.
And so my season has come to an end. It didn’t quite work out the way I planned, but it did open the doors to pleasurable non-theatre activities that would not have been possible had I been doing one of the Christmas shows. And, of course, it raises the question:
“When are we going to see you on stage again?”
When the time is right.
Chris' Corner 