Clipping Along at a Steady Pace

Had a couple of very positive experiences in the last couple of days. Interviewed to work at the upcoming Muppet Whatnot Workshop at FAO Schwartz, and pretty much rocked it. Only thing that didn't come up was how I hate children...but that just means I didn't have to lie at all during my interview! Hey, if you pay me well I will let the germ-infested maggots do whatever the hell they want. Just don't expect me to do the same in my personal life.

Went out to Brooklyn to meet with a potential roomie and check out her apartment. Seemed like we would get along okay - she and I had a bonding moment over dishwashing policies. Plus the apartment is great and the neighborhood lovely. She said she'd let me know by around the 16th. Hope that works out.

Had two auditions today, one for the Flea theater's non-equity company, the Bats, and one later for the Simon Studio season (they're doing Merchant of Venice and some other new ones). The Bats audition went really, really well. The artistic director, who was running the auditions, said "very nice job" several times, and when he came out into the lobby to fetch the next person after me he announced that it was a very good day and that the bar was very high. Woohoo?

The Simon Studio auditions were interesting. They were not conducted individually, rather it was all done more like a class exercise, and everyone got to see everyone else's work. Most people were not allowed to do more than 30 seconds of their intended piece. It had been a while since I'd seen other peoples' work; probably since the last time I'd been in an acting class, say 2005, that I'd seen people monologue in this kind of setting.

What I learned: not enough young actors know how to do Shakespeare.

Something in the listening cortex of my brain just shuts off as soon as it starts to hear classic text delivered with contemporary intonation. It was very, very helpful to see around 50 auditions, one after the other, and mark what make someone's monologue memorable, what made it interesting, what made it successful.

However. I kept oscillating mentally as to which monologue I was going to do, right up until the person immediately before me. I was all set, all ready, all decided, when the girl two people in front of me started doing a monologue of similar character type, so I went with the monologue I had decided not to go with.

Whatevah. No regrets. Another audition on Friday.