Though I am most commonly known as “the blog guy who won’t give up” or “the man without punctuation” a few unlucky citizens have had the misfortune of watching me interpret Shakespeare and less pretentious writers of the stage. A handful have survived to tell the tale, and among them I count many unbiased family members and lovers. I’ve even received a few notices from people unrelated or unbed who have at times confused my antics for “interpretation” or “substance”, what they don’t know can’t kill them. Thus far, my blogging world and acting world have remained blissfully unattached and untainted by one other, co-existing in the same unsound vessel, without causing world destruction or anything else similarly hyperbolic. I suggest you brace yourself for the imminent explosion. [Insert lame fart joke here.]

Graduate School: For some it is a foregone conclusion. Depending on your career path, you might be expected to attend several years of school after graduating from college because, quite frankly, the only real skills you learn in college are how to look like you’re paying attention despite a massive hangover, and how to make unwashed clothes look reasonably presentable. For an actor, graduate school is not strictly required, but it is a great way to justify outrage over the success of Keanu Reeves or whoever else actors are hating these days. And if there is one thing I’ve learned about being an actor, it’s never pass up an opportunity to become more jaded. That, and never date an actress (unless she is way hotter than you can possibly imagine), and, even then, pretend it’s a very difficult and painful decision (i.e. saline solution is your friend).

Precisely for these compelling reasons (especially the “hot actress” one) I decided to attend a massive audition in New York for a large pool of graduate schools that I had diligently studied the night before while crashing at a good friend’s NYC digs. New York is the east coast Mecca of acting, so everybody and their pet monkey showed up for the two-day audition. Keanu would have been proud. Although I hadn’t attended an auditioned in the Big Apple for years, the whole event was totally familiar (and in a classic NYC-type-of-way, totally overwhelming). Dreams would be made and broken, and lessons would be learned and quickly forgotten, all in the space of three minutes, the exact time each actor was given to prove that he or she was less painful to watch than the monkey.

A little side note: zoning laws should be established in order to prevent large groups of actors from congregating in the same place. Sure, it can work if you’re doing Oklahoma and everybody knows when it’s their turn to take the stage, but a scriptless group improv between actors who have not yet agreed to participate in the same play and suspect each other of being hacks, as well as mercenaries who would like nothing better than to crush you with name dropping or Meisner technique, is horribly uncomfortable for all involved, maybe even Meisner. (maybe even Meisner, maybe even Meisner…) The problem with these gatherings is the lack of sanity. If a bunch of people are sitting in a hospital waiting room and someone begins chanting very loudly to the Goddess of Breath, asking her to bless his or her diaphragm with an orgy of air, everyone else in the room quickly agrees that the chanting person is either really annoying or really sick and probably should be pushed to the front of the line. In an audition waiting room, this chant would have little effect, except that some people would think to themselves that the real Goddess of Breath doesn’t even answer that particular chant. Nobody thinks about getting out a baseball bat and politely encouraging the person to stop, or pointing and laughing; that behavior would be considered excessive and rude.

So, it was precisely in this sort of waiting room that I sat for most of the day while attending my first day of auditions for the University Resident Theatre Association (or the “U/RTA’s”). The U/RTA’s were held in a swanky Time Square Hotel on a floor dedicated to conference rooms/making money. The waiting area was filled with twenty-somethings eager to study at schools willing to pay them money for earning acting MFA’s. It’s a pretty sweet deal when you think about it, or, even when you don’t think about it, and, either way, the only thing standing between the Benjamins and all of us was our talent, or lack thereof. Nevertheless, the way I saw it, I had faked my way through three minutes in situations with far more dire consequences. (Like when this amazingly gorgeous girl once told me she would leave the bar with me if I could impress her before her date came back from the bathroom- I told her the difference between me and her date was it would take much longer than that… then I woke up. But still, BEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE!) So, by comparison, the pressure wasn’t all that great.

I can’t say I was exactly prepared for the audition. In fact, it would be accurate to say I wasn’t prepared at all. The night before, I had discovered that there were a lot of rules that I was supposed to follow, and, to the best of my knowledge, I was about to break most of the important ones. Somehow I justified this in my mind by telling myself that, at the very least, I would stand out. A quick look around the room confirmed my suspicion that many others were better informed than I, if not, for entirely different reasons, equally ridiculous.

First there was “Shirt Guy”…

To be continued…