#5.5 Party Time!

There actually isn't an exclamation point in the title of this short and harrowing tale by Harold Pinter. But it sure is exciting whenever Theatre on Fire announces an audition!

What's neat about Party Time is that the production'll be another home invasion like Vincent River was. So it'll be wonderful AND strange!

I was only really suitable for the last role, a character who makes an appearance at the very end of the show.

But I THOUGHT I might have a shot at a character named Terry. I didn't know if having the same name would give me an advantage or just make things awkward. I could've argued that it would save money on printing. "Featuring Terry as same."

I'm lucky because I live with Chelsea Schmidt, who is the production assistant for the show. That means I got a ride to Charlestown Working Theater where the audition was and I got to read the play before hand.

(It's a weird one, guys. I like it, but I can't quite articulate why yet.)

Anyway, the weekend before the audition I was real worried about the monologue I should use. Candy Factory has been my standby for a long time now, but I could have sworn I used it for a Theatre on Fire audition before, and I didn't wanna repeat myself. I actually had to check this blog to make sure that I hadn't. It's definitely time to learn a new monologue.

Anyway, I put Candy Factory into practice one more time at the audition. Director Darren was real apologetic about the boisterous class taking place above the theater. It worked for me. I did my monologue, honestly, the most sober way I'd ever done it. It was strange. This monologue's been real good to me. I'll miss it.

Darren also asked if I ever performed in any non-traditional spaces. I mentioned a performance installation on the Charles River Esplanade where I jogged back on forth on a pier for an hour and a half, occasionally coming to a halt while a woman in a tree far away song a wordless aria. As Emerson College experiences go, it was one of the better ones.

Three days later, I get called back! Callbacks were at the ol' BCA Plaza Black Box Theatre I know so well on a very busy day. Parking in the South End is usually hell, and this day it was particularly bad! Many actors were late. Laura Menzie, who was Juliet in that Romeo and Juliet I did that one time eventually arrived. We were jazzed.

But also nervous! This isn't an easy play to audition for. The entire play takes place at a cocktail party for the one percent, and everyone's motivations are very below the surface - tough stuff to pick up on the fly.

I was lucky to be asked to read for Jimmy, the character at the end of the show. His frame of mind is about as mysterious is everyone else's, but his language does stimulate the imagination. I also got called back for another schmuck who I wasn't as attuned to.

In the waiting room, it was killing us that Darren wasn't dropping any directions after scenes. Usually that's something that would bug me, but I understood. This play is probably harder to cast than to audition for. I don't envy 'im.

Two days later, I was lucky enough to be offered the role of Jimmy.



I did, however, forget to bring my headshot and resume to the initial audition. Whoops!



Still 5 headshots remain.

#5. She Kills Monsters

Oh boy! It's always exciting when Company One announces a show with a sizable cast. And especially when it's a show that was written by someone from Vampire Cowboys!

I wanted to a see a Vampire Cowboys show once years ago, Soul Samurai, but it was sold out, so I never did! Which is too bad. These cats seemed to be doing the sort of things I thought I'd like to be doing in Boston.

My roommie, marathon-runner and actress Chelsea told me about it, and we dived at the opportunity to audition. Days later we received our audition instructions.

• When you enter the audition room you will complete the following fill in the blank:
  "The nerdiest thing about me is _________ ."
• Next, please bring five images or objects that somehow relate to that nerdiest thing about you.
• Next, please recite a text that you love to recite. Any text, as long as it is one minute in length or shorter.
• Last, you will be asked to read from one of the sides provided at the audition.

Now THIS was a comprehensive audition! So much leeway, so many facets to control, so many ways to stand out from everyone else!

Four days later, we got an update. Due to the overwhelming response from the audition posting, in order to make time for everyone, the audition requirement was changed to a two-minute contemporary monologue. Well, I guess I coulda seen that coming.

They also sent out a copy of the script. I thought maybe I'd still audition with something from Speed Racer, which I would've done before the audition change, but I figured if they were playing it safe maybe I would, too. I went with Candy Factory, which seemed more tonally appropriate.

I was early for the audition at the BCA Plaza Theatre, the first actor there, beating even the director. I filled out my availability and my stage combat experience and hung around looking at the various paraphernalia in the lobby. I saw Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo was getting some good press!

Two ladies still went in to audition before me - I guess they wanted to stick to their schedule. It didn't work out quite so well, 'cause I didn't get to audition till after my assigned time. What's nice about C1 auditions is that they're predictable - always pleasantly staffed, always behind schedule.

When I got in, I met Shira, Phil, and Corianna. For my audition I planned on using a chair in the theater - pretending my hands are tied to the back of the chair is my bread-and-butter for this monologue. There was no chair. So I sat on the lip of the stage, with my legs out in front of me.

Thinking back, I guess I shouldn't've chosen a sitting-down monologue to audition for an action-packed show.

Afterward, the director asked me a lot of questions. Where I was from, why I was still in Boston. She was also the first person to ever ask me during an audition what the plot of Another Bad Night at the Candy Factory is: "Two guys are stuck in a candy factory, and at the act break they're tied up waiting for a man from an underground tribe to murder one of them so he can get his big boy pants."

She also asked me about Emerson College. "Honestly?" I asked.

"It's safe here," she said, gesturing to the mostly empty theater.

"I liked everyone at Emerson and I'm happy to have met everyone I did. Emerson itself was not very helpful. It's a small school that acts like a big school. Now that I'm out, I don't feel connected there at all.

"I went to Emerson because, on a tour, one of the guides said her friend was mounting a staged production of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I found out that had everything to do with the people in charge of the production, and nothing to do with the school.

"I did learn a lot about the emotional and creative aspects of acting, but very little about the mechanics. I'm training for voice over now, and I'm learning so much that I thought I would've learned by now for all the money I spent."

I think I spoiled the good will I was given with my biliousness. They were still very pleasant, and I think I was still complaining about Emerson when they said Goodbye.

The two women who auditioned before me were asked to "wait a moment" so the stage manager could check with the director to see if they should be asked to stay longer to read from sides.

The stage manager did not check when with the director after I stepped out, telling me immediately that I was "released".

Message received, loud and clear!



5 headshots remain

Monologue: Speed Racer

My love for 2008's Speed Racer is well-documented. An awesome thing about the film is that almost every major character has a monologue. The truth is, this particular monologue has been sitting in a text file in my Documents folder for a while. I finally built up the nerve to use it.

I've been told using a story as a monologue does not make an effective audition, as the events of the story have already occurred, and the point of an audition is seeing how you can deal with circumstances in the present. I believe that in the frame of this monologue, telling the story is a means to the end, not the end in itself.

Immediately before the text, Speed is offered sponsorship by the president of a gigantic automotive company. Accepting would mean dumping his current manager - his father.

In this moment, Speed paints the picture of a man who, though he may be stubborn and rough around the edges, is driven by the love for his craft and his family. Speed turns down the offer, not because of guilt or fear of reprisal, but because deep down he realizes just how much he takes after the old man.

I took some liberty in filling out the text a little bit to provide some context, since there is no accompanying montage.

This isn't an easy decision for me.

For my family, racing is everything. We eat, drink, think, and breathe racing. I mean, I was taught to drive before I could walk. When my brother died, all that went away. I can't tell you how painful that was for all of us. It nearly killed Pops. He didn't set foot in his shop for over a year.

But one night when I was still pretty young, I couldn't sleep. I figure maybe I'd go out and fall asleep in front of the TV. And I went into the living room and there was Pops, in his beat up robe, watching some old races he recorded.

He barely even notices when I sit down next to him. It takes a moment before I realize it's the '43 Prix he has on. I'm still trying to figure out how far into the race it is, and all of a sudden Pops starts screaming, like he's seeing it for the first time. And then I started screaming.

And as Burns and Stickleton duked it out, heading for the finish, we were cheering our heads off. And the second the black and white came down, we looked at each other, like we're seeing each other for the first time. And right there we realized the naked truth: racing is in our blood.

But for Pops, it isn't just a sport. It's way more important than that. It's like a religion. And in our house, the major sponsors are kinda like the devil.

I don't mean to offend you, sir, and I do appreciate your offer. It's just, I guess I understand his point of view. And after all we've been through, I don't think this kind of deal is for me.

The Starving Actor: Beans and Rice

You're home between shifts, and you've got JUST enough time for lunch. You want some protein and some carbs and you just wanna eat all of it

But all you've got is rice and a can of beans.

That's alright. With a little effort, we can make this meal a little less depressing.


Beans and Rice

A tablespoon of oil (and some more on standby)
About 2 cups of rice
A small onion
A medium clove of garlic (or garlic powder)
1 15.5 oz. can of beans (black or kidney)
Salt
Pepper
Oregano
Cumin
Paprika




[Unlike carbonara, this recipe is very free form. There's a wider margin of error, and more leeway when it comes to things like seasoning and consistency.]

1
First off, cook some rice. Put a little less than two cups of rice in your rice cooker, and cook to your preferred level of dryness/stickiness.

If you don't have a rice cooker, then, Jesus, I'm sorry. Get one. This one was $20 at a local hardware and kitchenry store. They're so convenient for poor artists.

If you don't have a rice cooker, cook rice the way that you normally cook rice: take a little pot, some some rice in, put in double the amount of water, cook it on medium-low with the lid on, and don't take that lid off.

ANYWAY, while the rice is doing its thing,



2
Finely chop a small onion and mince a medium-sized clove of garlic. Or a large-sized clove of garlic. If you love it, then just HAVE it.

Now, we're going to start by cooking the onion and garlic in a fat of your choice. The healthy choice would be olive/vegetable/canola oil. Doing so would keep this meal completely vegan.

I went with bacon grease. Since we have so much.



3
Over medium heat, put about a tablespoon of oil/grease into a small pot (or saucepan as fancy recipe magazines tend to call them - they look like pots to me).



What I like to do to move things along is tilt the pot slightly so the fat makes a little pool. If you shake and angle the pot, you can use that little pool to coat the whole cooking surface.





4
Now throw that damn onion and garlic in there. Give them a stir (Use the fork you plan on eating it with to save time later during clean-up!) to make sure that they're evenly coated with your oil/grease.



If it seems a little dry in there and some of your onion is lacking shine, feel free to add a little more fat, like I did. You don't want to sautee these guys so much as you wanna soften them. This is gonna be the foundation on which we build our beans.



5
So we're gonna zap 'em with a little flavor. Add about three shakes each salt, pepper, oregano, and cumin. You can do a little more or a little less of each depending on your preferences.

I just realized that the paprika is kinda creeping behind oregano there. What are you doing? Get outta there. We don't need you.



6
Give it a stir and cover until onion is softer and just turning translucent. Drop the heat slightly to avoid browning the onion. Interestingly, this lid does not belong to this pot, but it works!



Meanwhile: the rice cooker is cooking the rice. I don't even HAVE to pay attention to this thing. When it's done, I'll have cooked rice. How great is this



7
Get your beans ready. Black beans or red kidney beans work best. And always Goya. Goya will never let you down. I fucking swear by Goya.



Once the onion is mostly cooked through - that is, soft and definitely no longer raw - pour in those beans, liquid and all. Give it a stir and crank the heat. Get it to a simmer.



Check it out! I found the queen bean! Incidentally, I guess you shouldn't buy Goya if you're vegan.



8
Time to season again! Hit your beans with salt and pepper.

Then stir again, cover, and keep the heat on so the beans continue to simmer.

In my travels, I've learned the advantages to cooking something in a pot or pan with or without a lid.

With a lid
Liquid is conserved, keeping contents wetter and soupier.
Heat is conserved, making the boiling point much easier to reach.
All the ingredients within soften and share flavors, like a swingers party.

Without a lid
Liquid is reduced, making contents less watery and more viscous.
Heat is reduced, allowing cooking without fear of liquid boiling over.

When it comes to cooking something like beans, combining covered and uncovered cooking is the way you achieve the results you need.



9
While the beans are having a flavor party, let's fluff rice! Fluffing the rice and mixing it up makes it happy, and makes it so that it doesn't just form into a mold of the pot it's been cooking in.



10
Uncover the beans and take a few out for taste testing. They should be soft and, most importantly, taste good. Mine didn't right away, and I was a little concerned at the paleness of the whole affair.



Last time I did this, it was with black beans, and the liquid black beans come in are closer to the color of the beans themselves. Kidney bean liquid is paler, which can be a little off-putting.

11
So, I put a little paprika in there, which I was so ready to shun earlier.

At this point it's a waiting game. The longer the beans cook, the softer they will get, and the smoother the concoction on the whole will seem.



At 10 more minutes, my beans were looking a lot healthier, as the paprika did its thing and the excess liquid began to disappear. Give it another taste test before you commit to declaring the meal a success.



Once it's to your liking, put your beans over some rice and enjoy a simple-ass meal with plenty of rice and protein. I had OJ with mine, and it worked for me.

You can also fill that bean can with change and then shake it to stop dogs from barking.



Yeah, you stupid idiot, you have no idea what you're in for.

Hey, wait a minute.



There's already a recipe for rice and beans on the back of the can!

#4. Fresh Ink's Second Season

I worked for Fresh Ink before as a stage manager. But now, I sought to be a stage man; eager.

There were auditions for two shows. When I expressed interest, I received sides for both plays.

THE EMBRYOS, about a family that tries to raise their failed embryos as children, sounded like a hoot, but I knew the only role left for me us the male embryo, and something in my head told me, "No... that's not for me."

But FIRE ON EARTH, about the smuggling of illegal translations of the bible during the reformation of the church of England, not only sounded great, but had a part that made perfect sense to me.

John Frith, a real life opponent to the Anglican Church, was earnest, gentle, and ready to die for his beliefs.

I was asked for conflicts for both shows. I wrote down my conflicts for The Embryos before I realized I didn't really want to audition for it.

For my last handful of auditions, I was just happy with the prospect of being considered for any role. It's empowering to finally have the opportunity to say, "No - I want THAT role."

I read specifically for Frith at The Factory Theatre before, I believe, most of the Fresh Ink staff and the director of either show.

I got to go all the way through both sides, and it felt good.

I'm excited for the show, whether or not I'm in it.



6 headshots remain.

#3. The Book of Mormon

I took a night off from checking my email after coming back from Brown Box's Romeo & Juliet tour. Being in Maryland with only a dumb phone, I had already taken over a week off from that particular responsibility and figured another 14 hours wouldn't hurt.

Lying amongst the ticket offers for ethnic dance troupes and online-only CVS gift cards, there was an email with the subject header The Book of Mormon, sent from a Gmail account, asking me to audition for the Broadway, Chicago, and national tour productions of the Tony-winning musical.

"Pfft, yeah, sure," I thought, "A casting company using a Gmail account? How droll."

For the hell of it, I said I was available the very next day. Twenty minutes later, I received a reply with every detail about the audition, and a link to a Dropbox folder with audio, sheet music, and sides. I was asked to prepare Man Up and scenes #3 and #4.



I couldn't goddamn believe this was happening again.

When I was first offered, unsolicited, an audition for a musical, I said it was the most unexpected thing that happened to me as an actor.

I definitely did not expect it to happen twice. And I did not expect the second time to be for the national tour of fucking The Book of Mormon.

When I was asked in for Bat Boy, I chalked it up to a clerical error. This time, though, the casting director specifically mentioned my New England Actor profile as the reason he wanted to see me.

I figured they just wanted some bug-eyed white dude to play a Mormon at the beginning, since there is no mention of musical theatre training on my profile, nor are there musical credits.

Even still, I was asked to read for one of the leading roles, Elder Arnold Cunningham.

I knew nothing about Book of Mormon except for Matt Stone and Trey Parker's involvement, so I went to Wikipedia and YouTube to read the story and learn the production history and hear the songs.

Every once in a while, a side of my brain would say, "These notes are too high to actually be physically sung, let alone well," with the other side of my brain saying, "Yeah, I know."

There was something almost like confidence beneath all of my anxieties. The odds of my being cast were infinitesimal, even moreso than the average audition. Whatever the percentage there was to begin with, another couple of zeroes was slipped in before that number when you factored in my complete lack of training, lack of familiarity with the show, lack of time to prepare, and the sheer amount of competition for a national tour.

But I said Yes to the audition already. Whatever that number was, I could either sink into despair and multiply it by zero, or I could do as well as I could given my time and resources and multiply it by 1.0000000000001.

I loaded Man Up and its accompaniment onto my iPod and strolled out into the night. I wasn't a musical theatre performer, but I'd treat this audition like I treated the others. I just needed some alone time.

But it's hard to be alone in a city when you have to find out whether or not you could hit the high notes. I actually marked the music where I thought I should drop the octave. Amazingly, I found out that I didn't HAVE to drop the octave, and that I COULD - very briefly - hit that high G. All of the dudes laughing outside of the auto repair place I walked by found out, too.

After I got through the song without dropping the octave, my diaphragm felt strained, so I called it quits for the night. Doing a lot of reading about voice over, I've been more sensitive to the support of my breath and the health of my vocal cords, and I didn't wanna hurt nothing.


The next day, I had a tour that ended with just enough time for me to get to the audition at the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio. I had no time to sing it for anyone, or to hit these high notes again before the audition.

I left work in such a hurry that I forgot my slick-yet-charming Ralph Lauren shirt. All I had was my undershirt: the T-shirt that I got when I graduated from Emerson College, with Emerson College's logo upon the breast.

So now I was gonna be the douchebag hearing his alma mater. With a little teriyaki stain on the collar. But then I thought, Hey, maybe the casting director is an Emerson alumnus!

When I got to the studio lobby, it was so quiet I could hear my heart beat. Maybe it's just my prejudice, but I imagined the room outside of a musical theatre audition to be much livelier. Five other people, slickly dressed and examining their music, sat, not saying anything. Through some persistent corner-out-of-eye-looking, I saw that nobody else had the same music as me. It seemed like no one else was called in for the same part that I was.

When I had to sign in, there was a little box under the words ROLE DESIRED. I was called in for Elder Cunningham, but I would never imagine actually being cast in that role. Someone else had written "Elder McKinley", one of the other Mormons. I wrote that down, too.

For the next 20 minutes, I sat, leafed through my music and my sides, and watched people come and go. A sharp, handsome gentleman was running the floor, calling names, saying Hello, taking headshots. I wondered how many people would be in the audition room.

As I waited, I could hear some of the other auditions, and I got nervous again, sometimes reminding myself to Just keep breathing, it's the one thing you'll always have control of.

Finally, the man came out for me and I handed him my headshot. I saw someone else take their tea in with them, so I took my water bottle filled with licorice root tea along. I dropped it just outside of the audition room, bent down, and picked it up again.

The only other person in the room was behind the piano - so this guy I was seeing this whole time WAS the casting director. As he closed the door behind me, he introduced me to the accompanist.

I walked over to shake his hand, uninvited. No, fool, what are you doing! Don't shake anyone's hand in the audition room unless they offer first! This is an AMATEUR'S MISTAKE!

The director suggested that we start off with the song, Man Up. Seeing my face and my name, this guy seemed to know who I was and knew what he wanted to see me for, unlike the director in my Bat Boy audition. Heartened, I began enthusiastically.

And inexplicably started a full octave higher than was written, cracking in the process. "Sorry, I had a... tour today," I said, apparently assuming all of the subtext of that sentence would be immediately understood.

When I resumed again, I gesticulated wildly, which I believed was signalling that I understood the irony of the material and the sincerity of the character. Halfway through, I had no idea if that was the right thing to do. I realized that I didn't know if they wanted me to sing so they could know that I could sing, or if they assumed I could and they just wanted to see if I could act, or if I shouldn't act so that I could just focus on singing real good. Nobody taught me this.

I was amazed they let me sing all 47 bars without stopping me. When the director suggested we go to side #3, I jumped at it.

In my mind, what was so funny about the sides is how much they reminded me of South Park's writing. It was mostly my character being naive and childishly overjoyed about the future.

I showed over-the-top, unfocused excitement, jumping and punching the air, swaying my weight from foot to foot. I was playing a caricature as opposed to a character. The director let me do it again, but before he did, he told me to plant myself, because my moving around was distracting.

I never truly trusted myself. Every mistake I made was amateurish, lessons that I thought I had learned from every single other audition I had written about.

But somehow, because I counted myself so out of my element, because I felt so guilty trying for something I didn't think I deserved, I forgot even the most basic tenets of auditioning.

Before I left, though, someone else who had come in asked me where the bathroom was. I told him to go down the hallway and take a right.

If nothing else, I was able to give a least one person something they wanted to hear.



7 headshots remain.


Bonus: When I looked up Elder Cunningham, I found this guy. Your problems are over.

VOTE FOR ME ON HERO CAST

PREVIOUSLY ON X-MEN 10 HEADSHOTS

Jesus, that was a long time ago. Sorry, guys, I been too busy making that sweet summer scrongi. And being serious about video games.

I auditioned in Framingham for a part in a quinology of films about super heroes in Boston.

American Idol-style, my recorded audition be put online and all of those fans of the Mission Park Quinology could vote for their favorite super hero hopefuls.

Well, mine is finally up!



Also featuring Curtis Reid as my scene partner. Nice going Curtis!

Now, I don't think I'm a bully or diva, so I wouldn't assume that you'd

VOTE FOR ME

just because I'd ask you to. But if you think I've earned it, having watched my audition, then you can go ahead and

VOTE FOR ME.

Or hell! Vote for anyONE of the hopefuls on the ballot! The choice is yours!

DECIDE THE FATE OF THE MISSION PARK QUINOLOGY!!

EDIT (9/19/12): I didn't make it to the next round. Oh, well!