The director, Adam Cannon, in instructing us about call backs, specifically suggested that it would be a good idea to dress the part. Since I'd been called back for Prudy Pingleton (who?) I watched the movie again and observed the character.
Prudy was played by Allison Janney, who is probably on my top 20 people I wish I could meet. I loved her in "West Wing" and "Finding Nemo" and think she's tops. Okay, so she was dressed like a school marm slash spinster. What did I have to wear to look like that?
Enter closet, sift through clothes. Okay, I've got that skirt and this sweater. Nylons? Who wears nylons anymore? Dance shoes will work. But they're not really dance shoes but they look like them and were much cheaper and have a good vibe. Maybe as good as my lucky hightops. I wore them when I went to the White House and saw Paul McCartney and Dave Grohl and a bunch of others in concert and there were the Obamas right over there. Yeah, dance shoes are lucky, too. Called friend who may have nylons to give me. She gives me three pairs, still in the package. (If not still packaged, ew. I'll go buy some. Didn't have to.)
From the movie I gleaned that Prudy is quite the Bible reader, so when I went to the audition, hair as frumpy as I could make it, I carried a Bible. I went into the room with all the women who were called back for the part. There were only three of us! One, a rather older woman, whom I'd spoken to in the hall. She had kept talking about Kat, who I figured out was her daughter. But I was like, who's Kat and what makes her so special? The other woman was a tall, jocular woman. It became apparent to me that these two women knew the Adam and the assistant director (Andrea Johnson) so I thought, Okay, I have no chance.
Coincidentally, the other woman who was called back was the mother of the girl who really liked my son. That was awkward. She was sick and didn't come. Is it bad that her stomach ache just made me feel better? Less competition, is well, less competition!
I had gotten some lines to read online previously, (the lines are called sides, which I didn't know before. Embarrassment #2 if you're keeping up.) I couldn't memorize them well enough--a weakness of mine--memorizing, so I held a copy of the lines. Which made me feel especially bad when the older woman, Joan, had the lines completely memorized. I'm sunk, I thought.
It came time for me to read. I set my Bible on the table where Adam and Andrea sat, said, "Please hold this for me," gave the book a little pat, then read and acted my lines. I started feeling a Prudy vibe. Then they brought in the girls who'd play Prudy's daughter Penny. Well, hey, there is Caitlyn, whom I know! The Prudy-as-mom vibe started then. There was some dialogue that had Prudy hugging Penny, but Seaweed, Penny's black boyfriend, was in the scene, too. I waved my hands up and down, looked at the directing staff and said, "This is Seaweed." I felt him there. It was very cool.
The hugging the Pennys was really interesting. I could feel something. I honestly thought when I was hugging a certain young woman, who turned out to be Leisel Cope, that she would be Penny. Hoping to be Prudy, I thought, oh great. Now I'm going to have to dye my hair red, and I can't really dye my blonde hair darker. Leisel is a dark redhead.
Then I did the scene where I tie up the girls. There was no rope so I looked around the room (the drama room at Diamond Fork Junior High) and found a cord. I used that. But I felt inspired to tie an imaginary bow on the top of Penny's head during the line, "And this is for crying wee, wee, wee all the way home." Director Adam laughed at that and said he may even use that in the play. A-ha! Did I do something that made me stand out? As Joan did her audition, she, too, tied a bow on the top of the girls' heads. As they say, imitation is the finest form of flattery, right?
During the audition, Andrea said she felt that Prudy may have been involved with a black man at one point and he'd done her wrong--that was why she was so anti-black. I almost had a physical reaction, a negative one, to this suggestion. Was Prudy already creating herself in me?
Adam said we could read for other parts. I read for Velma, too, and felt some connection, but thought that I was not an aging beauty queen, though I wanted to be. This may be Jennifer the person talking, not Jennifer the actress. My days as the ingenue are sadly over. Times infinity. However, as I walked by Adam as we were herded into the music room, I whispered, "Velma, Velma, Velma." I figured it couldn't hurt.
Singing next, and since Prudy has no solos, we Prudys all just sang one of the ensemble numbers. But we were asked to sing along with the Pennys. I decided to go for it, and held hands with the girls, bounced around. I admit, I was having a blast. I didn't know the song at all, and one of the SFCT (Spanish Fork Community Theater) board members, Juli, knew all the songs and knew the show inside and out, and again I thought, there is no chance for me. <sigh> But I jumped in anyway and figured, what the heck. This was fun!
I left the audition, walking home in my lucky White House dance shoes. Though my house is only a few blocks from the Junior High, my feet were killing me by the time I arrived home. This was a foreshadowing for what my feet would feel like nightly all during the months of June and July.
Then, I waited. The cast list was supposed to be posted. Again, I checked the website. But nothing was posted. I figured no news was bad news. This, too, the dips in my confidence, was a precursor for the months to come.
Next time, the CALL. But for now, keep playing!
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