Not Bitter
Walking into my first audition for a show with a new community theater, I was not nervous. Not a bit. I had just closed a show not 3 weeks earlier, and it had been my best performance ever. I was doing this audition on a whim, for the sole purpose to see what the community theater near my new home was like. I didn’t expect to be cast, because this community theater is known for being fairly exclusive. But the role sounded tiny, like a walk-on role. Maybe I’d get lucky.
I wasn’t in the audition room for more than a minute when I discovered that the character listed on the website was not the actual character I’d be auditioning for. No, I had accidentally shown up to audition for the title role, the lead role.
And did an excellent job. It was fun, and exciting, and I got called back to do second rounds of auditions.
Except the holidays got in the way. The first auditions were December 14th, callbacks were January 5th.
In these 3.5 weeks, I fell in love with this character I’d known nothing about when I first walked in. She was me, but more sophisticated and more forgiving of men. She was more violent, but also braver. Articulate like I could never be.
It would have been easier to have never met her, because she is now someone else’s.
I never used to get my hopes up about being cast. Having my hopes dashed so many times as a teenager taught me not to put so much of myself into those hopes. But this time, it’s like I forgot what it was like to get that rejection. All that energy into hoping and for what purpose? For 3.5 weeks of make-believing? Of imagining new friendships and performances that aren’t going to happen?
It would have been so much easier if there hadn’t been those 3.5 weeks. It was going to be quick and painless… just a test… and it turned into a small heartbreak. And I’m a pitiful mess. I know that if I was observing myself, I’d tell myself all the things that people have been telling me… that there will be other roles, that there are other things that I want to do this winter to fill my time, that the fact I was considered was a big plus… I’d tell myself all those.
I know for a fact that I’ll be absolutely fine soon. In a matter of hours, probably. But not yet. I’m still a tragic, melodramatic mess. And this tragic, melodramatic blog is the result because there are only so many frowny faces you can put on Twitter and Facebook before people start un-following and de-friending.
I’ll let go of Laura. That bitch who’s being played by either Bland Brunette or Inconsistent Blondie…
… I swear I’m not bitter.
Okay maybe a little.
