a little touch of Harry in the night...

Some of you may know that I tried out for a show at BYU in winter semester of 2012. I auditioned for Henry V, put on by BYU's Young Company. They do adaptations of plays for younger audiences and tour the elementary schools around the county.

In short, the auditions went very well for me and I made it to callbacks. Callbacks went well, too. However, I didn't get cast because when it came down to it, the other girl was a theater major and I am not. 

Talk about disappointment. My mom, who is the dramaturg for Henry V, tried to make me feel better by telling me that it was my major that kept me from being in the show and not my abilities, but it made me feel sadder. Time and again I have faced rejection in theater because I don't have the right connections at a particular place (like the Hale or the Scera) or I'm not in the right field of study. It was really hard for me to not get the part based on my academic background.

It's funny how things change though, because almost a year later, I have suddenly found myself thrown into the cast of Henry V. Due to unforeseen circumstances, someone had to drop out of the show and I just happened to have the time.

Say hello to the King of France, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the page boy. No, I don't have a multiple personality disorder -- I just get to be three (four, if you count my time as a guard/executioner) different characters in the same show.

Read more about it here.

Wish me luck!

a comic...me?

I auditioned for a play today.
It was alright. They had groups of us auditionees go into the studio four at a time. After asking us why we wanted to be a part of the production, they had us get into partnerships. And then they dropped the bomb: "improv a fairy tale for us."

I SUCK at improv.
Seriously. I am so bad at it. Not to mention I got totally confused because the detailed instructions were to act out a fairy tale...but the two girls before my partnership and the girl I was with decided to do storytelling. So instead of creating a scene or having a plot, they told the entire story starting with "Once upon a time" and so forth.

Con-freakin-fused.
I found out later that one of the directors we were auditioning for is the storytelling professor in the theater department. A lot of her students were trying out, so they were doing what she'd taught them. Soooo yeah.

Anyway. So the my partner and I get up to do our improv section. She got into the storyteller groove, and I stood there feeling like an idiot. Then it came time for me to say something, so I went for it and...

they laughed at me.
Not just a polite titter or a chuckle, but a throw-your-head-back, bust-a-gut roar. I was so thoroughly thrown off by it that I looked at them like a deer in the headlights, then realized this was an audition so I just had to go with it. So I kept going and...
they laughed even harder.
Every time I opened my mouth they started laughing their heads off. So while I was up there making a fool of myself I replayed what I had done and said in my early improv attempts and started laughing too because gosh dang it...I was funny.

It was fun. I don't know if anything will come of it, but it was entertaining. It still is entertaining to think back and picture my 5 foot 2 inch self trying to tower over a girl three inches taller than me, ordering her to come to dinner and go on a date with me because "I'm the Beast!"

...
You would have had to be there to appreciate it