Lame

After four callbacks, you'd think there'd be at least an email to say, 'sorry, no'. NOTHING. That's kind of shitty, right? I think not contacting your auditionees is generally a sucky thing to do. I guess if you see way too many people, it's not worth it, although with most of your submitting being done online now, it doesn't seem like it would be all that hard. But if you've given a lot of time to a project, it seems like it would be a civil thing to at least contact people, so that they're not endlessly hanging.

Have to move on, have to move on, have to move on.

I'm kind of concerned right now that I don't actually exist. I feel that nothing I'm submitting is getting even a response. Even emails to friends go unanswered. Maybe I'm a ghost.

Lack of Auditions

I haven't gone on auditions in a long time. I don't have an agent, which is part of the problem. And I'm reluctant to try and get an agent, just because I don't think I can. I feel like I don't have a strong enough look, or a strong enough resume yet, to impress anyone. I've been rejected by most of the 'best' agencies in Toronto, so now I have to go to the ones that are smaller, newer, have fewer famous people in them. Which is fine, you never know who is going to work for you, and a smaller agency can be way better for people who are just starting out. But I feel I don't even have a chance with them!

It's also just slow in general...I don't see nearly as many postings for auditions as I used to. It's frustrating. I really want to audition right now, although I desperately need some new monologues anyway, especially contemporary ones. Ick. But there just doesn't seem to be enough out there.

Hopefully this is the impetus to start creating more of my own work. I have an idea for a one woman show that I'm actually quite keen on....I have to get cracking on that.

Rejection

I don't know any ways of dealing with it that don't involve the consumption of an entire cheesecake. I've been terrible with rejection my whole life. I don't take risks because of failure. I don't reach out in case I fall. I am terrified of rejection.

So I'm in the worst possible career for someone who is so reluctant to be turned down. I have to get turned down a lot. And I do. Oh boy, do I. I am pretty amazing at not getting parts. It might be second only to my ability to eat an entire cheesecake.

I've only recently started getting to a point where I can look at it as their loss. There are parts that I know I could do, and I'm a pretty good addition to a show: I work really hard, and I've gone above and beyond in a lot of my former shows, getting costumes, making sets, rearranging life and work to rehearse. But most of the time, its not them, its me. Most of the time, I take it personally. Very personally.

I'm coming off the biggest rejection of my entire life. I'm trying to rebound from it, but its slow going. I haven't even heard from this company I'm waiting on (although I'm assuming its a no at this point???), and I'm already bummed out.

Ay yi yi.

Still waiting...

This is a 'no', right?

This feels like a 'no'.

Anxiety

I hate waiting so much. One of the worst things about auditioning is hanging out in the netherworld after having done an audition, but before hearing anything back. Sometimes its pretty immediate, and as terrifying as it is to not be called back in front of everyone else at the audition, at least you know that you're done. Sometimes you will get a wonderful personalized email, thanking you, maybe even mentioning the possibility of future work. I recently received one of these, and as much of a bitch as it was not to get the part, I am trying to take it as a victory that they remembered me positively. Sometimes you will get a mass email saying 'thanks, but no thanks'. And then, far more often than the other possibilities, you will be informed that you were not cast when you see said show, or at least advertisements for said show, and realize that you were not in it.

It's so shitty to just be left hanging. As much as I try to leave the audition when I'm finished, I never do. I think back over it again and again. I replay it, and various permutations of it ad nauseum. When its gone badly, I often relive it with an added scene in which I vomit profusely all over my shoes, or recast all the auditioners as boys I had crushes on in high school but didn't know I existed. Sometimes I turn it into a monster movie, in which my hideous performance somehow transforms me into Godzilla, and I end the audition storming out, twenty feet tall screaming, 'Jessica SMASH! Supporting roles BAD!'

And when it goes well, I add lots of dialogue to increase watchability and add dramatic potential. Maybe the auditioner tells me, not only will I play every part in this play, but in every play he directs from henceforth. Often in these dreams, I transform into some kind of modern day Dorothy Parker, spilling forth witticisms as easily as gin flows from a bottle.

Neither of these, of course, really has any reflection on a) whether I get the part, or b) whether I hear from the company again. A great audition can lead nowhere except into fabulous Nora Ephron-type fantasies, and an audition involving expletives and an undone fly can sometimes get me a part. And you never know how you're going to find out the result.

It fucking sucks.