Audition - it's what we do.

Tis a great feeling when your agent calls and says that you, yes you, have been selected to meet with someone regarding a job. 

It was with such delight and urgency that I received a call about five years ago for a musical going to the Edinburgh Fringe.  An audition for a musical about mental illness.  I had it in the bag surely.  Whilst training, a director told me he was sure I’d been a schizophrenic in a previous life so convincing was my portrayal on stage.

Like buses I went for a few weeks without one casting and then a string of mentally unstable characters in theatre and TV came along…I’ve had to surrender to the possibility of ever playing pretty.  Recently I waltzed up to an audition beaming as I was called for the pretty flirty wee thing…on arrival I was quickly corrected.  “NO.  Today you’ll be auditioning for Ellen…older, plainer, bitter.”

Anyway back to mental illness. The real life subject not to be laughed at but could this musical really be serious? I hadn’t seen a script so had visions of choruses of “I’m mad, you’re mad, we’re all mad together” running through my head.

I was quite inexperienced in the art of auditioning at the time.  But even now I have to fight the demons of insecurity when you hear the person before you doing their thing.  The brief…the old familiar chestnut.  Prepare one piece two minutes long and a song of your choice.  Simple.

I entered a room and was greeted by a young couple behind a table in front of the brightest light.  It was like the sun had landed on the pavement outside and was shining straight at me.  Almost hidden from sight was a pianist.  As a trio they were not ogres, terrifying and grizzly.  They were in fact quite pleasant.  So I don’t know what happened on passing through that door into the room of light but henceforth that following 15 minutes would go down in history as my worst audition.

Now perhaps I should not be so bold to profess this yet.  I am not yet dead, who knows what lies ahead but I pray I have learnt a lot from this experience.

I started my monologue, one I’d performed a fair few times before…and approximately 30 seconds in I completely forgot what I was doing, where I was, who I was.  Now this perhaps could have been seen as perfect for such a musical as this.  But no!  The idea is to cast an actor who could play mental illness not someone suffering from a condition.  It was awful.  I stuttered, then staggered my way through the piece, my brain trying to grab any semblance of control.  I found it, but was shaken.  My audience looked shocked…and not with pleasant surprise.

Next, the song.  Surely something could be regained.  Surely.  Something.  And so the pianist started.  And off I set too.  A dainty little ditty from my home country…except the old brain had started to engage with what had just happened. 

And so I started to go slightly red at the cheek.  Singing my Irish ditty I started to focus on trying not to blush, which we all know works so well, and continued to get redder and redder and redder.  By this stage my audience have signed me over to be committed.  Song ended.  Brief chat.  And I ran out of that room.  Straight on the tube.  Back to my house and burst into uncontrollable tears.  After finishing four years of training, performing professionally and countless times as a kid, I couldn’t even stand in front of 3 nice people.  I could, I can, I will.  It just would seem sometimes our best days are not every day.  Sometimes madness catches you unawares and sometimes perhaps your finest performances are in real life.