The Thriller Audition--Post #1

I'm auditioning for a show that's a thriller on Sat. The audition is on Sat, the show isn't. (My dangling modifiers won't let up in this blog apparently...) No, the show isn't The Thriller, it is a thriller. Still I thought it would be funny to show up dressed like a Thriller dancer, but maybe not as funny as I think. Thriller as in spooky shows are supposed to be, well,  spooky, mysterious, Hitchcokian. Would the director think I'm sick and twisted, which I may actually want, or just lame, which is like, dumb?

So I am deciding not to wear the red space suit with super big shoulder pads. I don't have one anyway. But I would like it on record that I created some humor in regards to this. Ok?

I found two monologue pieces that might work, though we are only expected to do cold readings for the audition on Saturday. But I emailed a few days ago about the audition and "Bill", the director, 'would love it' if I have something memorized. I'm nothing if not interested in looking like  The Actress Who is Willing to Follow Directions, so I am memorizing away. I wanted something spooky, but settled for something sad. I guess I could recite something from Poe. "The Raven"? Ah, this other will work. I hope.

Now that I think about it, maybe I need to find a spooky, mysterious, thrilling monologue. Or, you know, I can just dance around like a skeleton and sing, "Thriller. Thriller, yeah." Those are the lyrics, right?

Here is what I chose to do. Tell me what you think. Also, photo enclosed of the outfit I was going to wear except I don't have one. Tell me I'd look amazing in it, ok?

It doesn't bother me.  When she laughs like that.  She laughs at nothing or sometimes talks like in different languages that nobody can understand.  She doesn't mean to, I mean she doesn't do it on purpose. 
But Dad says she might always be like this.  But that I should remember that no matter what she does or says that deep down in my mama's heart, a part of her still loves me...  just like she always did.  Like she did before the accident. 
That the part of my mama that loves me will never change no matter what.  And I believe that, I mean, I want to believe that....I mean I don't think that Dad would lie to me. 
But still.... how can my mama still love me if she can't even remember my name.

From Constellations by David Moberg

Note to readers--if you have an amazing, spooky, creepy, SHORT monologue, let me know! Thanks time infinity.

Keep playing!

First Readthrough of The Impossible Mystery

Years ago, I was given the remarkable opportunity to work with the Grande Dame of Spanish  Fork Children's Theater--Anna Murdock. I volunteered as a parent helper while Spanish Fork Youth Theater put on "Narnia". For several seasons, I was able to actually work for Anna, for pay, as one of her drama teachers. My son was in each of her shows, and during one summer show, even my husband was hired to teach 80 kids how to act.

Anna retired, so my gig as a teacher was over. But we've remained friends, and she has watched over my son's progress in shows as if she were his own grandma. She gave him his first part (a Dwarf in Narnia) and has encouraged Caden's persistence and talent in drama. I owe a lot to Anna.

Her daughter Cami wrote a fun murder mystery a few years ago and I directed one scene of it--the Mansion scene, set in England, in which a bunch of silly society ladies twitter and gossip and giggle (and then the murder is eventually solved. There's more to it than this, of course.) I directed the Mansion scene with teenagers as the gossips. And now I am one! I'm Lady Chattaway.

We had our first read through tonight in Anna's wonderland backyard. Some of the cast I know, some I don't. I admit, some of the people in the show are folks I, ahem, have had issues with. This should be really interesting.

Which brings me to the topic that keeps swirling around in my blogs--the politics of theater. There is apparently no smaller world than the arena of local community theater. Because Anna has been doing this for 40+ years, she knows everyone. And because she is the nicest, kindest, most guileless person in the world, she sees everyone for how she wants to see them. She sees me this way, too. As a perfect person.

I admit--I'm freaked out. Okay, I am. I'm humbled that Anna thinks so well of me. But I admit it freely, I have burned bridge, at least really torched them badly. Those bridges are now appearing in this show with the ushering in of certain cast members who I've--um--been unhappy with and said so. Or, in the case of one woman, I reviewed the show she was in and I was honest about it. (And that is the subject of a whole other blog sometime soon). I will need to somehow pull these bridges from the ashes and reconstruct them.

Lesson for the day--be as nice as you can to everyone in your small theater world, even those people who you think aren't good teachers in a youth drama program. Someday you may be in a show with them.

Here's me, signing off. But to all of you, keep playing!