1. This amused me.

2. I went to the periodontist today. They really got on me about my blood pressure being "slightly" high and I ended up apologizing out the wazoo because god forbid I took an Excedrin this morning. Teh horrorz! Between that and the part where they measure my gums and say cryptic numbers...not fun. But the bad stuff ended eventually, I had a fun chat with the lady about dance and crafting, and I came out of it with a pretty good bill of health or at least I don't have to get surgery this year. Huzzah.

In the words of an anonymous Internet philosopher I read talking about going to the dentist once upon a time, "This gives me eight grownup points. Now back to poopie jokes."

3. Even though I did not see Star Wars Thursday or Friday and will probably not be doing it until Sunday, I wore the Princess Leia sweater today and people loved it. One guy said it made his day.

"If you're a real artist, do Gumbo." --Sarah

How much have I written about this whole audition thing yet that you guys have seen by now? I forget.
Anyway, the story is that my drama class teacher Sam (and his daughter Sarah) are putting on a variety show called Gumbo that they work on for a month and perform about three times. You audition by doing pretty much whatever you want for 2 minutes and then after that...I guess they make up a show based on that, and throw in some dance numbers. This year's theme is gender.

I asked the teacher about this whole "make up your own audition" thing and he mentioned that he wanted to put in some history and suggested the (infamous) Abigail Adams "men would be tyrants if they could" letter. I was all "PETTICOAT AFFAIR!!!!!" at him and scurried off to check this book out of the library again.

I created a monologue based on Margaret's autobiography. Here's the explanation of the whole thing:

The Petticoat Affair took place during the first two years of Andrew Jackson’s term, when his friends John Eaton and Margaret Timberlake got married only a few months after her husband died at sea. People assumed the two had been having an affair, and it became the social scandal of Washington once Jackson appointed Eaton as his Secretary of War. The ladies of Washington shunned Margaret and two years of crazy drama ensued. At one point a rumor spread that Margaret had even bragged to a doctor that she had miscarried Eaton’s baby. This is a monologue based off of Margaret’s autobiography, titled “The Autobiography of Peggy Eaton.”

And here's the monologue--dialogue pretty much as is except for some tweaks Melinda helped me with.

"Upon meeting Mr. Bradford, I said, to him, “I want to see your pastor, Dr. Ely.”
He exclaimed, “Why, Mrs. Eaton, have you heard those reports?”
I answered, “I have heard them and I am getting to the root of them.”
He replied, “My dear madam, I am glad to hear you say that, but are you not afraid?”
“Afraid, sir. Afraid of what? Why, concerning these reports I am not afraid to meet my God. Why should I be afraid to meet a man?”
We arrived and Bradford said, “There he is.”
Dr. Ely said, “Well, Bradford, how are you? I am very glad indeed to see you.”
Mr. Bradford said, “Dr. Ely, I have the honor to present you my very particular friend, Mrs. Eaton, the wife of the Hon. John H. Eaton, Secretary of War and the friend of Andrew Jackson.”
Dr. Ely said, “Ah, ah, I am glad to see you,” and extended his hand. (I drew myself up straighter and held back my hand.)
“What, sir. Offer to me the hand that would filch from me the highest treasure a woman can posses and transmit to her children?”
He said, “I am a friend of General Jackson and it is not my advocation to propagate slanders.”
”No, sir, the avocation of a minister of the Gospel is something very different from that; and you have turned aside from your high calling to clap this slander on my back.”
He hemmed and hawed and said, “Won’t you walk into the house?”
”Won’t we walk into the house? I reckon you will find we will walk into the house. I do not intend to leave these premises, sir, until I drag the whole of this thing out of you.”(points to house) “Every brick here shall crumble into dust before Margaret Eaton will leave until she gets the whole of this thing out of you.”

I have been having to memorize new lines every two weeks and man, I'm sick of memorizing lines by now....And while I enjoy the heck out of Margaret's angry/pompous dialogue (she dictated that book, so that is from the horse's mouth as to how she talked), some of those lines are super damn hard to say.
Try saying “What, sir. Offer to me the hand that would filch from me the highest treasure a woman can posses and transmit to her children?” well, any times fast. I had the worst time of it with the lines towards the end, because somehow I'd choke or fumble or forget stuff like "I do not intend to leave these premises, sir" or "the advocation of a minister of the Gospel" and especially "Every brick here shall crumble into dust," etc. I just kept saying those lines over and over again (especially last night) and I'd seem to have it for a while and then start choking again, which I was really doing today. Worrisome.

Oh, and for the record, I showed up for this audition in full Dickens Fair costume, complete with bonnet. Yes, I went Full Bonnet. Any comparison to "Full Boyle" on Brooklyn 99 is completely deliberate.

So I got there and 20 people auditioned tonight, I'm presuming maybe a similar number showed up for the first night of auditions on Thursday? Sam announced that tomorrow at the callbacks they'd do cold readings, have you do anything else you want to show off, be sure to show up in some kind of dance clothes you can move in, and they'll be figuring out in general what acts they want to put into the show, see what dance numbers they can get you into because it's a musical variety show, etc. It's okay to be a "volunteer" for the show, I do not have to enroll in a class again to do it. Huzzah to that.

"We don't know where the show is going." It's their fifth or sixth year doing it, auditions for this can be really personal, and "We try not to be crazy, but we're crazy." Yeah, sounds like I'd fit right in.

The audition acts went as follows:
1. someone doing To Be Or Not To Be from Hamlet, only they were straight up reading their lines off a music stand. I was not expecting THAT.
2. Modern dance
3. A guy's personal experience about the time he heard some guy berating his son about how to dress like a real man (like this kid), except little did he know that this kid was heading to a stage makeup class.
4. Singing "You Know I'm No Good."
5. A dance duet
6. A monologue she found online on some "powerful woman monologue" website AN HOUR AGO, so she didn't have it memorized either. It was a monologue on smiling, which I think we all loved. It pointed out that you never hear anyone say, "Smile, sir" unless they're getting a photo taken. Sarah was all, "that just happened to me at work."
7. A coming out story of being genderfluid.
8. Spoken word slam poetry. This went over so well I heard people saying "I don't wanna follow her!"
9. Singing "Something Stupid."
10. Another dance, which this guy claimed he came up with at the last second. It was lipsyncing and dancing to "Dear Theodosia." I give credit for both acting out how to deal with a toddler learning how to walk and turning into an old man.
11. Singing a song from Steven Universe, which I know nothing about.
12. A love poem, which the guy read off his phone because he hadn't memorized it either. You notice a theme here?
13. Guitarist playing "Princeton Avenue."
14. Singing "If I Were A Boy," and stopping at, "I can't remember the rest, so!"

("This is one show you don't have to worry about auditions," I heard someone say at this point.)

15. Then it was me, I'll get to me in a bit.
16. A singing duet to "Old Money"
17. Another singing duet to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," but started out with the line, "Hold on, I have a really big wedgie."
18. Lipsyncing to Beyonce.
19. Singing "Coming Back As A Man." This girl started out by saying that she now has a teaching job that forces her to stop dressing as she wants. If she had her way she'd just be walking around in her bra, she said, and flashed it to us all.
20. Singing "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man."

As for my audition, I was all, hey, if nobody else has it memorized, then I am getting out my notes for this. He didn't seem to be timing everyone's introduction to what they were doing, so I scrapped the shortened introduction I had written above and gave a longer one, then did the monologue. At least this way I wasn't tripping and choking over those lines!

After that, he said tomorrow we can bring something else if we want to do it briefly. S&S were going to talk after this and then decide on things.

I get the impression here, given the lack of callback cast listing or any general attitude of "not everyone is coming back here" being mentioned, that perhaps everyone gets into the show by default?
Well, that'd be great for me. I could finally get into a show for the first time in my life. Lord knows life works out better when certain folks aren't at all picky!

AND I AM DONE MEMORIZING LINES (for December, anyway), YOU GUYS!!!! I watched an episode of Supernatural when I got home without guilt! I listened to MOAR HAMILTON on the way home without guilt! My mind is my own again! My homework is done! Time to fuck off like the rest of the college kids after finals week!

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry