Thanks, But No Thanks
A short list of unsuccessful auditions I went to in the first month of my freshman year of college: one musical, two plays, one improv troupe, two senior thesis projects, and one student film. These all came and went in a very short time frame, and almost all of these were accompanied by callbacks, which means I devoted a significant, concentrated amount of time to standing up and acting in front of people who did not like my acting.
And of course there’s a whole speech: “Maybe you didn’t look right for the part… Maybe you had an off day… Hey, at least they liked you enough to call you back!” Whoever came up with that little speech should probably put a sock in it, because there’s a very basic human urge to be liked that little speeches can’t change.
This is sort of the typical story with actors. It’s the stigma of failure that people automatically associate with the trade; when I tell folks I’m interested in acting, they either raise an eyebrow or make a really, really concerted effort not to raise an eyebrow. I know some really talented people who love the work they do on stage, but have focused on other careers only because acceptance, validation, and, y’know, jobs don’t pop up reliably enough in professional acting. I used to tell myself that the professional actors I knew (who were all my teachers at a summer camp) were counterexamples to this trend, since they were getting along just fine on an actor’s salary; then, I realized they had all taken second jobs teaching me at a summer camp.
The part of this that’s too funny to be funny anymore is that I still go to college with all the people who have rejected me. At each audition there are two or three people behind the table, meaning I’m building a nice, big portfolio of people with whom I can make awkward eye contact in the dining halls. Last year, one of the girls from a callback that didn’t pan out stopped me on the street the day after I’d been rejected and said, “I know this doesn’t help, but you were awesome.” My mouth said “thanks,” and my brain said “iF I wAs so aWesOme wHy didN’t yOu CasT ME,” but I digress.
A big factor in my college decision was finding a school where the arts thrived. And that’s come back to bite me a little here, because the arts are thriving so much that there’s not always room for me to thrive with them. I imagine that's true of a lot of other pursuits here: be it a sport, a club, or a class, the competition is a little stiffer here than wherever you were before. College theatre in particular is a competitive environment, the biggest pond for a lot of overeager, small fish. If you don’t have thick skin in the first few months of college, you’ll either toughen up real quick, or you’ll get out of the game. I dove headfirst into that same jungle of “no” at the beginning of this, my sophomore year, which either means I’m self-confident or forgetful. Maybe a good actor needs to be both.
It definitely takes a certain type of person to keep walking into those auditions. That natural human urge to be liked has to be so strong that you’re willing to go into a thousand rooms full of unresponsive people before you find the room that’ll take you. And, of course, the successes aren’t permanent ones. When I finish with the show I’m in right now, it’ll be right back to square one, more cold reads and more callbacks.
Wish me luck…
Image via.