My Experience in Community Theater: Episode Three

Any and all acting experience I have comes from either acting out stories in my room, or hosting live classes online for 3 ½ years. Yet, in all that time, I never acted with anyone else. My first experience of acting with another person came the second night of auditions.
 Having read for The Inspector the night before, I sat, as you may remember, nauseated in my seat. I read for a character named Aggie in a scene that required a lot of yelling and was, therefore, awesome. In that scene I played opposite a guy I remember simply as that nice guy. Two other girls who I’d made friends with that night were in that scene as well. I remember feeling like we were all just having fun on stage.

  The final scene I read for was between a husband and wife. Now, in auditions we mostly just stood there and read the lines. I, in particular, did not even try to follow stage directions because I read very slowly. But it was the end of the second night and this scene had been read by several people so the actors upped the performance each time.

    I delivered my first line of dialogue and looked over at the guy reading with me. His usually laughing face was covered with this guarded expression. I thought, Whoa, he’s intense and that makes this so much easier. And suddenly the scene clicked. I knew who I was and what I was doing. Everything came naturally.

Liam, the director, ended the night with a little speech about how difficult it was going to be to cast this play and how if one character had to play very strongly off of another, then it affected who would be cast. I smiled and nodded through the whole thing as though he were speaking only to me; telling me why, though I am a lovely person, I would not be chosen for this particular play.

While I was going to sleep that night, I only let myself indulge for a few moments in the thought of what could happen if I were cast. What if I got cast as Aggie and whoever That Guy was got cast as Simon and Nice Guy got cast as the main guy. I am frighteningly good with names.

The next morning I check my email. Nothing. I checked it a few more times, but by 11:00 accepted the fact that I was not going to be in the play.

Aw, well, that’s ok. I knew I wouldn’t get cast. It had been fun. It had been a growing experience. It was totally worth the nausea. And I really didn’t have time to be in a play anyway.

At 2:00 I got a call. It was the director. He’d misread my email address and was calling to ask if I would accept the role of Aggie and would I be able to make it to rehearsal that night. I was dumbfounded. I said yes. I may have cried a little bit, it was so completely unexpected. I couldn’t believe they thought I could act! (I still kind of can’t believe that, actually.)

When I showed up to rehearsal four hours later, who should I see but That Guy and Nice Guy! That Guy(whose human name is Daniel) plays Simon and Nice Guy(whose human name is Justin) is our leading man. It was one of the few times that things worked out in real life just as I'd hoped and I don't take that for granted. 

Especially now that I’m in the trenches. It turns out my role has a certain level of physicality to it and that demands trust between myself and Justin, and myself and Daniel. I could not have gotten two more trustworthy guys, they’re stupendous.

            And ridiculous. Yeah, they’re mostly ridiculous. Justin has impeccable timing for his subtle one liners and asks deep, thought provoking questions. Daniel is always happy to talk about his wife, whom he is madly in love with, and will physically pick you up if you’re not on your guard.

            More on them later…

END OF EPISODE THREE

Tune in for the next episode of My Experience in Community Theater: Episode Four: The People You’ll Find Here