#7. Boston Actors Theater

The Altruists by Nicky Silver has been touted as one of the funniest contemporary plays by my peers. It's pretty good, anyway. So I guess it made sense to check it out when these guys were putting it up.

Auditions were at Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Man, that place gets all of the action.

Boston Actors Theater. Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Huh.

This was a cold-read audition. Before I signed in I was asked who I thought I should read for. I wanted to say, "What do YOU think, smart guy?!" but I didn't think I'd score too many points with that one. Here are all the male roles:

RONALD: Male mid 20s to 30s, a gay social worker; a well intentioned dreamer
ETHAN: Male late 20s to early 30s, a womanizing political activist
LANCE: Male early 20s, a beautiful, stupid street hustler and prostitute

Since no one would cast me to portray any of these characters, anyway - and I pretty much knew that coming into this - I said that I would read for Ethan.

I read a scene between the characters Ethan and Sydney with another actor, Lauren. We read through it again and again. She was getting funnier each time and I was not. Sydney was clearly the focus of the scene, as all of her objectives were pretty clear. All Ethan seemed to do was act as a brick wall, refuting all of her points. But I figured, "Well, listening is acting, too; not just speaking."

So I listened to Sydney real hard for the directors. And then they told me they had seen enough.

In my heart, I knew that I should have read for the gay social worker.



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