Entry One February 2008
20 or more years ago I was sitting in the green room at the Old Globe in San Diego, in my tights and tunic, waiting to go on stage and talking to veteran character actor Tom Lacy about the worst auditions we’d ever had. He told me a story that had me in stitches about the time he passed gas while taking his shoes off during a commercial audition and ran out of the room nearly weeping with embarrassment. He got to his apartment, fell on the floor and lamented the loss of his career and the label of “The Actor Who Farted”. Well, he got the job because the director couldn’t really remember anyone else and everything turned out all right in the end.
And it gave me an idea. Why not create a forum for some actors I know and admire to tell about their audition experiences?
First it was going to be a book, each actor writing their own piece, but we’re performers, not writers, and we need an audience or what we do doesn’t exist. We need to tell the story. So now it’s a film.
Thankfully, as it’s developed, it’s become something more than a collection of audition stories. Those we’ve asked to be involved have inspired us to go beyond the obvious, as we hope to do in all our endeavors.
We’ve tried to avoid any kind of toxicity - except perhaps in marveling at how we’re able to survive it intact and ready to face it again, like St. George if he were forced to confront and slay the dragon for a living instead of just that once.
It’s a strange thing, the audition, and everyone processes, and is possessed by it, differently. Trying to define it and presenting it in this light we hope to cross the line that divides performers from other professions, both in and out of show business.
The process of going after what we want is the antagonist, and we are the protagonists. We are the journey and our objective is as clear or convoluted as we make it. And whether we attain it or not depends upon how we observe the seeking.