Chaos Attraction

Viewing Room Auditions

2019-08-21, 7:26 a.m.

Well, I moved into my new private office today! I like it! Though my boss did come in and then tell me I should close one of the cabinets instead of leaving it open and was being all weird about it. I was all, why, are we concerned about thievery here now or something? and it turns out her metamessage was trying to say, “Don’t get too comfortable in here and don’t bring in stuff and remember that you don’t rank enough to get your own office forever.”* And don’t decorate because “I want people to see YOU, not....” Oh, FFS. Uh...yeah, I’m pretty sure I can haul shit home yet again like I have during ALL MY OTHER OFFICE MOVES before. And this one actually has enough room to hold all the stuff I have to keep forever but never use. And seriously? It’s not like I’m ever going to advance here or ever could, it doesn’t matter if I fucking decorate or not.

* note: we’ve seriously had lower ranked folks than me have their own office for months at times, even.

And yes, I’M GOING TO DECORATE SINCE I HAVE THE SPACE AND NOBODY ELSE IS IN HERE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT MY DECOR (which is what I'm usually told these days is the reason why I can't). Screw that, I say. I don’t know when I am going to have the time to find all of my buried office decor, but I think I should do it.

I also threw out a lot of my old papers that I no longer need, such as stuff from my old unit. So purging that was very nice. Right now it looks very empty, but...muahahahahah.

So while out walking with coworkers, we got stopped by an international student wanting to ask us questions for her homework. I did not want to participate in this (I get hit up by international students wanting you to take a survey a LOT) and we were about out of break time anyway, but one of my coworkers is nicer than I am and said we'd answer. Her questions were (a) are you on Instagram, and (b) if not, why aren't you on Instagram?

My answers were (a) no, and (b) because I have a stalker. Of course because she's an international student, she has no idea what a stalker is and I was forced to explain it to her. A lot. And then I was forced to explain to my coworkers that yes, I have a stalker, and yes, you are well acquainted with that person. That was a fucking joy to have to disclose for some random girl's damn homework that I did not want to help her with. Also, no, you're not 100% expected to be on Instagram in life quite yet, so fuck that.


Tonight was the second night of auditions for The Viewing Room, which had me, Scott, Laurel, Janene, and two others I didn’t know. I guess the other dude wasn’t actually auditioning (which...honestly, he wasn’t great, super awkward so that’s probably fine). There was the director (Jesse from TnT) and his wife who I met at As You Like It, and the playwright himself. Yeah, that’s...unusual to me.

Anyway, they had thirteen people yesterday but some of them came back again today, so there’s a total of sixteen people for 8 parts and Jesse said he felt sad about not being able to cast everyone in this one or double cast or anything and he knows everyone and everyone is good (see, this is why this theater company is so nice). I said it’s fine, I know I’m not getting into it anyway. Both Laurel and I did not think we did very well, I think Janene did the best in the room. I assume Cameron will get in because it’s Cameron. I am sad I did not do that great at it, but it’s that kind of week and lord knows you wouldn’t take me if you had to be picky and choosy and I knew it was a long shot anyway. This is just the only one I had any hopes about, + wanting to be with friends, so of course I’m bummed.

The script is funny, I can say that much of what I read of it. Dad somehow comes back from the dead (I don’t think it’s explained or at least wasn’t from the scenes we did) and Matthew is the only one aware of it at first, I guess everyone else finds out later, and there’s a hippie sister named Debby who, as per what Robert said yesterday, channels dead dad. Which was in this audition. I read all the lady parts and I can say the mom is a funny ditz, the older sister Patti appears to be mostly the straight woman by comparison to the other two and I’m not sure why she’s there, I guess? It’s clearly a man’s play because the guys get the best dialogue. I never felt like I got enough of a sense of any of them to really do very well at it in the way that you could from the guys’ roles. I wasn’t sure if I should be doing any voices or not or where these people were from or what--the playwright said Boston afterwards, but that Boston accents are hard to do. The lady parts weren’t that clear about it.

As for the scene where Debby channels the dead dad...well, I asked online how the hell to do this and got some tips, but I had added difficulty in that nobody was there reading for the dead dad (except Jesse once in a while and you can’t really imitate him because he’s so nice) and there really wasn’t a guy to try to imitate. I got coached to basically just do a very deep voice and be all gruff, so....fine. I tried. I can only imitate some people really, so hell if I know if I could do it in the end. Depends on how distinctive the guy cast as the dad is.

Scott was fucking fabulous, doing voices all over the place and knocking all the male roles outta the park. I think he’s the best actor I’ve ever met in my life and seriously, just any time he talks.... I will happily listen to him just like, rant about the downtown parking, I don’t care. He’s that good. The playwright was all, “You like voices, huh?” and he was all, “I’m an only child, I had to entertain myself.” (I say the same thing on entertaining myself, but uh...I just read a lot...) He even got laughs at lines that did not get lines in the original production, the playwright said.

I think he was best at Matthew (the youngest dude, also just for practicalities of casting). But the script says that everyone is in their 40’s through 70’s, and while I wasn’t at last night’s, I know from all the last few shows there’s a good chunk of young’uns from teens to 30’s and older folks around 60+, but I don’t know how many folks would be in the middle. (Technically me, but I am not admitting to such.) I know we fudged a lot of ages in Tony n’ Tina such as myself and Tony, but can you do that when the playwright is right there knowing what you’re doing and going against his intentions in a show that seems to spell out the ages? Like, “Oh, you were born in 1957, Matthew” level of spellout.

If they don’t put him in they are fools, fools, I say, but I dunno how much he can match a dude in his 40’s if they want to nitpick that. Somewhat, I guess? Like he has young face/attitude, but also has beard/some gray hair/super deep voice. I dunno. Though if he’s in and presumably I’m not, I won’t see much of him for awhile. Sigh. Oh well, that was going to happen anyway once As You Like It ended. I suppose it’s time for us to drift away from hanging out so much. Probably all for the best in the long run under the circumstances.

He and Laurel and I hung out for a bit afterwards, talking about the filming he’s doing right now, where the heck we can audition elsewhere around here, how Laurel wants to offer improv classes (to which I was all, “we’re in if you do it”), and Halloween. I asked if either of them was going to go to the Earthquake Festival and she said she was going to grief group and he was all “maybe but I have work to do.”


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