The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

So after getting to my Spring Awakening audition fifteen minutes early, I end up waiting an hour and a half, watching people who were LATER THAN ME get to audition first. I ended up auditioning about ten minutes before closing time, and not only were my nerves so wound up that I'd long lost my cool, they only had time to listen to one of my songs and I'd lost so much focus that I sang the soft, sad beginning of it instead of the awesome climax.

I've waited pretty much the whole day for a callback email, but as I didn't get one, I pretty much felt like shit.

But after I was done listening to angry songs and crying, my sister and mother said variations of "It's not your time yet" or "You just didn't fit their image, it's nothing against YOU," I had a sudden thought: Well, fuck this--I'll make it my time. This thought seems to have sparked my imbas (inspiration, for the non-bards/Irish Reconstructionists), because now I'm not sad anymore.

I just don't feel DONE with this yet. I find it hard to believe that the Morrigan would go to such trouble to put everything on a silver platter for my audition only for me to blow my audition due to nerves. Yes, she's really enigmatic and chaotic, but she's never been CRUEL to me. The trouble is, while she helps me be assertive, she's not so helpful when it comes to actually bringing it to fruition--but making me figure things out myself is probably her point.

The rehearsals start April 23rd, which means I still have three weeks to either get into the ensemble and wow them with how well I've learned the entire script, or get them to host another round of auditions/callbacks that I will ace. My horoscopes all say that April/May is when great things are going to happen; I just have to figure out how to get it without stooping to underhanded deeds (seriously, that's what my horoscopes are warning me not to do).

I'd just like some energy for the next month, please--it feels like I'm going to need it.

Good luck and prayers for energy

 
I was talking with my friends about it today--they told me that making me wait for an hour an a half was completely uncalled for, and if there had been a reason, they should have told me.

I think it's well within reason to ask for another shot at it.

I sent the director an email about it, so now I just have to keep reminding myself that asking won't do any harm.

But this feels like the right thing to do, so... time to wait.

It *is* odd that you waited so long while others who arrived later went ahead of you (unless some of them had appointments), and, as you said, it doesn't hurt to ask the director and/or stage manager about that.  Kudos to you for being assertive!

We ALL had appointments. Many, many people who arrived early were inexplicably kept waiting while the guy at the desk kept going, "Oh, we'll just squeeze you in, [person who arrived a few minutes ago]!" One girl was called up about twenty minutes after I got there (a bit before 9PM), and the man and went, "Oh, I just realized you've been waiting since the start of the auditions (6PM)! I'm so sorry!"

That was when I started worrying, because this theater has a WHOLE lot of good reviews on Yelp about their excellent performances, and their complete lack of professionalism for a widely-renowned musical that EVERYONE'S going to see is inexplicably jarring.

I then found out that they cancelled the callbacks without even emailing anyone--because "so many people auditioned that we have everyone cast now!" I had to go onto the site in a masochistic urge to see if they had a cast list to see a very small note at the corner of the website.

Then I got an email back saying, "Sorry you had to wait, but everyone is cast now. Even WE'RE not sure why the schedule got messed up, but we tried our best to give everyone a fair audition." At which the Morrigan nudged me and went, "This wasn't even CLOSE to a fair chance."

That said, and speaking as someone who has spent decades in theater (mostly stage management and lighting design), what you're mom and sister said really is true.  Directors often have very specific "looks" in mind for the various roles, including the chorus.  Sometimes that's because of the vision they have of the show, sometimes it has to do with what sizes the stock costumes are, sometimes it's a combination of various factors you might have no idea about.  You can deliver a perfect and amazing audition and still not be cast If you don't fit the director's image of the character.

Aside from my nerves and tiredness, should I mention that many people remarked on all the little details I got right? Marking my sheet music and taping the pages together, bringing extra copies of my resume/headshot just in case there were, say, five people watching my audition instead of one or two, and I was wearing very specific stockings in a blatant reference to a line in the play? One of the other auditioners complimented them and went, "Are you wearing sky-blue stockings so they'll know you watched the play?"

My theater professor says that even if someone looks perfect for the role, the actor who works harder will win over the actor who looks the part. He is also starting to disdain auditions as a sole means of casting, since auditioning is MUCH different from actual acting and you can only get the utmost basic information (appearance and voice range, in my case) from an audition.

You're doing the right thing to just keep trying.  If it doesn't work out for this show, there's always another show coming up.  The director might be so impressed with you that s/he remembers you next time.

The Morrigan is saying that it will work out for me--on a logical standpoint, casting ANY musical on the basis of appearance and one minute's singing is hit-or-miss at best, and cancelling the callbacks for a Broadway hit drives it into stupidity.

As crazy as it sounds, I can feel the situation cracking under the surface; bad personalities, last-minute schedule conflicts, the good-auditioner-bad-actor conundrum, any number of things that could go wrong--and they'll be forced to recast people because so many people are expecting a great show. At which they'll go, "Wasn't there that chick demanding another audition? Let's have her do a reading to keep her quiet."

But your horoscopes are also right -- don't stoop to unethical behavior in an effort to get into a cast.  Theater can be a nasty business.  And theater people have long memories. If you screw someone over now, it will almost certainly come back to haunt you later.

 
Earlier this week the Morrigan kept hounding me about something being unfinished, so I sent an apology to the director in case I sounded rude or self-centered. She then went, "Now I can get to work."