I am 3 days away from spending 3 hours to determine 90% of the success for my production of Shadow Box. They often say the when it comes to directing that 90% of the work is putting the best actors in the right roles. That’s a lot of pressure for three short hours in the afternoon – especially three hours that determines how you will be spending the next two months! Get this audition thing right – and then it really is just a matter of keeping the actors from running into each tother and the furniture!
I often approach this audition time with a great deal of noise in my head. I run through a lot of possibilities, then doubt them all – – then redo them all – – then realize that the audition hasn’t even started. I must admit, however, that I do love auditions. I love to see the care and respect that young actors have for the art. I love to see them put on good clothes and exercise some job interviewing skills. l love to see the preparation. I love to see procrastination tamed a bit. And more then ever, I love to see some of the work we do in the classroom pay off here and there as they realize this audition game is far more then just a “reading contest.”
Is it crazy that I go out a buy a new notepad to take the audition notes? Is it crazy that I am cleaning up a favorite fountain pen and consciously picking out a color of ink that I think will “go with the show”? Is it crazy that I am being my own mother and picking out “the outfit” to wear for the audition? Oh, I could go on talking about even more crazy preparations – but I really do need to preserve SOME of my dignity. I will likely be going down this road of auditions only seven more times – so I am enjoying and owning each and everyone one of them.
Shadow Box has a specific wonderfulness for me. Many, many times I have used the rather famous and often done scene played out between Joe and Maggie that begins with the line, “It would have been nice” – – I have used this scene for the last 27 years with EVERY sophomore class in their first semester. I have always found it to be a perfect scene of American realism. Now, after seeing this scene play out in my classroom so MANY times – – – from the good, bad and ugly of 700 students, I am ready to hear it in the context of the full play and hear it for the last time! Over three hundred sophomore boys have said that one line, “It would have been nice.” My job is to make this, “it would have been nice” the best of my career.