It's just like riding a bike

The last couple of weekends have found me unexpectedly auditioning for a play.  For the past few years, I've been at home raising babies and feeling like I couldn't be away from the homestead long enough to attend rehearsals.  I won't lie.  It's been a hard adjustment for me.  The kids are only young once, but it's quite a mind bend to simply abandon something that is so much a part of me.  I also think that it's really important for moms to have time to themselves to rejuvenate, refresh, and come back to the kidlets a better, more patient, version of themselves.  Anyways, I had the play all picked out.  It's one that I've wanted to do ever since seeing the movie version, and it didn't start rehearsing until December 2008 - after I planned to be finished breastfeeding.  Little did I know the auditions would be held so soon...

So I freaked, of course.  I mean, it's been four years (four!) since I've been on stage.  I've been to one or two auditions, but most plays that I've been interested in since the first positive pregnancy test have fallen at most inconvenient times - either I've been pregnant, just given birth, or the Husband has been otherwise engaged in his own play. 

The initial audition called for a monologue if the director was unfamiliar with your work, and a scene reading.  I didn't know if I would have to do a monologue or not, so I prepared one anyways.  As it turns out, I didn't have to do it, because the director had seen my turn in Five Women Wearing the Same Dress way back in 2004, but, wow, was my audition was a bit rough.  The director gave us the instruction to do the scene as if we were doing film acting - in other words, "ultra real".  I think what he meant was that we shouldn't overact, but I took him at his word and ended up playing the scene deadly dull for stage purposes.  Plus, I was acting opposite a talented actress who looks nothing like me.  As we were auditioning to play sisters, that is a bad, bad thing.  I did end up getting a callback, but it was based on past performance, and the fact that I'd worked with the producer before.  Apparently, the audition hadn't gone as smoothly as I'd hoped.

Callbacks roll around, and we were down to three and three.  The woman I'd read with in the initial audition was there for the lead, plus two other girls much younger than her.  The other two women vying for my role - the older sister - were both blonds.  Yikes!  The director made the requisite speech that we're all talented and he could cast any of us.  The Husband is not a fan of those speeches, but I always go for them hook, line and sinker whether it's true or not.  (Am I desperate to believe I'm talented?  Who knows??)

All three of us going for the older sister role got a chance to read the first scene with all three of the younger ones.  I decided to go against my natural tendencies and completely ignore the women I was competing against, and focus solely on forming a chemistry with the younger sisters.  Note to self: that's a good idea, and it made me much less nervous.  We then got to read the second scene with only one of the sisters.  I didn't know if they matched us up with our potential castmate or not, but I read again with the woman from my first audition.

At the end, the director asked us if there was anyone we'd like to read the second scene with, someone we felt we hadn't gotten enough of a chance to act with yet.  Two of the blonds, who looked remarkably related, immediately shot their hands up in the air.  They read very well together, and my heart sunk.  They had good chemistry.  So again, against my natural tendencies, I volunteered to read the scene with the girl who I thought had a good shot at the other role.  This is a tricky move, and it can make you or break you.  If I read the scene poorly, I could undo all the work that I'd done so far, and surprisingly enough, I thought that the callback had gone pretty well thus far.  Shy as I am, I would normally sit back and say nothing. 

I left the audition thinking that it was either between me and the talented actress who looked too old to play my younger sister, and the two blonds who had great chemistry.  Since they weren't going to call with the verdict until the next night, I tried to put it out of my head.

...Yeah, right.  I lost count of the times that I put it out of my head.

Monday night I got the call.  I got the part!  While my three-year-old was whining that no one was playing with him, the baby was screaming, the husband was stuck working late, and while I couldn't figure out how best to scrape the basil pesto sauce out of the blender and into the ice cube tray so I could freeze it, I juggled the phone on my shoulder and tried to talk coherently to the director.

I was so nervous about this audition because I've been away from the scene for what seems like forever.  "It's just like riding a bike," my husband had assured me.  Maybe.  But it's kind of surreal to go from wearing elastic-waisted pants and sunscreen in the park sandbox, to wearing a belt and makeup at an audition.  Everything is the same, and yet everything has changed.  I guess it's because I now have to ride a bike with a baby bucket seat attached to the back and a triker biting at my heels.  At the very least, we're a force to be reckoned with.

So..I know it's a long ways away, but what are you guys doing in February '09?  Wanna see a show??

Comments

[SciFi Dad]

Congratulations! That's awesome.

[Naomi (Urban Mummy)]

That's fabulous! Congrats!

[Don Mills Diva]

Of course I wanna see a show!

Congratulations!

[bea]

Great news! Did the looks-too-old one get the lead, or one of the blondes?

[metro mama]

HOORAY, HOORAY, HOORAY!

I'm so happy for you!!!

Of course I will be there in February.

I love Proof, by the way--what a great choice to get back into acting!

Again, so happy for you!

[Mad]

Yipee, yipee, yipee. Now if I could only time a trip to TO to see you trod on those boards... Mmmmmmm.

[Kyla]

Oh yay! Congratulations!

I know that sort of phone conversation...every time the magazine calls me I have the same experience. LOL.

[kittenpie]

Will SO TOTALLY be there! Will find a way!
And wow - congratulations. That is fantastic, especially for your first time auditioning for ages. You must be a natural!

[kgirl]

You made basil pesto!

Phyche! I'm SOOOO happy for you! That was a great story, and I can't wait to see you in the play - I really enjoyed the movie, which, come to think of it, I saw at Movies for Mommies the first time 'round.

[Helen]

Congratulations!!! Great story!!!!

[crazymumma]

This is going to be AWESOME for you.

AWESOME.

Reserve me seats you crazy stage woman.

[Mac and Cheese]

I'll be there! That's amazing news!

[Beck]

OH! That is WONDERFUL news - and it's going to be so much fun for you. Congratulations!

[Painted Maypole]

LOVE that play! Saw it on broadway (when I was, unbeknownst to me at the time, although I was starting to wonder, preggers with MQ). Congratulations! You will be FABULOUS of course. I can't wait to read more about it in. In 6 months when you start rehearsals. ;) At least you have lots of time to learn your lines. I started Dancing at Lughnasa rehearsals when MQ was six weeks old, and spent most of my nursing time learning lines. We used to joke that when MQ started talking she'd have an Irish brogue.

[b*babbler]

Wow! That's some seriously awesome news.

When can we book our tickets?!? :)