Auditioning

When I heard that the Virginia Theater was going to do Into the Woods, at first I was really excited. I could just picture myself as Cinderella, in that beautiful gown, dancing and singing... and my favorite part, the applause at the end. I told Dusty about it, and he was very supportive. But then... I started practicing my song... and I guess it was going okay, but I remembered all of the reasons I gave up on being in plays. I started to get really nervous. What if I made a fool of myself? I was wasting my time--surely I wouldn't make it. The funny thing is, performing the play isn't the scary part to me. I still think that that would be really fun. But auditioning... specifically presenting myself to be judged, where someone will be watching me looking for something specific, and I might not even know what that is... that is really really terrifying to me. When the time came nearer and nearer, and I still didn't really know my song, I gave up. I didn't really decide not to try, I just knew that I wouldn't. I would let the opportunity pass me by, quietly, without acknowledging it, and that would be that. Dusty wouldn't let it happen, though. Two days before the audition, he started pushing me, gently, but in a way that basically told me I had no choice in the matter. "It doesn't matter if you get it," he said. "All that matters is that you try." So be it. I set to really learning my song.

The night before the audition, I had been singing all evening, to a CD (Wicked), to the radio, then I finally started practicing my song, and I was losing my voice. The high notes were okay, but the low notes sounded awful. Yech.

The day of the audition, I got all dressed up. I wore a suit, and my Aunt Dale's diamond necklace. Dusty told me once about how people give you more respect if you look impressive. Plus, I knew I would feel even more like garbage if I showed up looking all grungy. Anyway, I practiced my song only three times, in the car on the way to the theatre, because I was afraid I would start to lose my voice again. The audition itself went pretty well. I was still pretty scared at first. When I've auditioned as an adult, I get nervous in a way that I don't think I have at any other time in my life. It's like my entire body goes numb and I want to break my own finger or something just to feel again (okay, I know I'm really weird). When I was singing, my body was trembling, but I knew that there wasn't anything that I could do about that, so I just focused on remembering all of the words, and trying not to look at anyone (while not looking like I was trying not to look at anyone). After my song, everyone else clapped (as they had for everyone who was auditioning) and one person had even cheered (which they hadn't for anyone else, and I didn't know anyone there so that's good!). Then, they had me read lines. They had me read a lot of lines. More than any of the other auditions than I had watched. The more I read, the less I trembled, and the more fun I started to have.

And, that was it. She said that they would call me with-in a week.