...Try, Try Again...
The Ghost of TourCo Auditions Past (pt 1)Sometime in 1998 was my first TourCo audition, for SC-Detroit, back when they had a TourCo...and were actually located in Detroit. I had just finished Level 1, so I'll let you imagine how bad it was.
January, 2001 was second TourCo audition, my first for SC-Chicago. From my old journal about that audition:
"Re-read Peter’s advice to those auditioning for TourCo. Reminded myself that almost no-one gets it on their first try. Promised to make a proper resume for future auditions. Tried to focus myself on positive thoughts. Honestly, I just wanted to have a solid audition—I wanted to represent myself well. What you want and what you get are two different things…
I got off work early and traveled up to SC from the Loop. I was starving, so I decided to catch lunch at Boston Market. Guess what…that’s right…ran into more improvisers! I sat down with Bob Ladewig and Paul O’Toole and some people they knew and we just bullshitted for a bit.
Bob was one of the first people I met out here…he was also one of the first improvisers I met —he was working at Borders and I had my SC Detroit hat on. We started talking about improv and I found out he was on the Rooftop Players who were in the middle of their record setting Cagematch run (like 15 or 16 wins). He’s one of my favorite people to talk to and one of my favorite improvisers to watch. Plus, he’s an all around good guy who just got engaged to his 7-year(!) girl friend (she’s 22, you do the math).
They left and I had lunch, then caught a mocha-something at Starbucks. I went up to the SC E.T.C. theater for my audition.
Basically, there was a lone table set up with some water and a piece of paper telling auditioning improvisers what was up. Among my auditioning group was Tim Chidester, Stacy from Dinner of Six, a guy from Salsation (who I always talk to when one of us is drunk).
It was hard to relax. I mean, you got Chidester dancing around, warming himself up and this huge mural of SC alumni hanging over your head—so between glances at Tim and the weight of Belushi, Candy and Short pressing down on me, it was a miracle I didn’t scream. I felt bad when one of the other auditioners (Joe? Joel?) asked if I wanted to do warm up scenes and I said no...I just wasn't in the right frame of mind just yet.
A lady came out, took our resumes and headshots (or in my case, made a disappointed “oh” noise when I said I didn’t have one) and led us into the theater.
As we took the stage, I looked out at the first row of evaluators and saw TJ Jagodowski, which made me warm and fuzzy ‘cuz he’s a cool guy. I’d like to say I didn’t care who evaluated us, but it’s reassuring to know someone you like is out there.
Mick Napier stepped forward and asked us to say one thing about ourselves not related to improv or theater. The topper from the 6 of us? A guy had just returned from the Israeli army where he had blown up a dog with a rocket launcher.
No shit.
Apparently, to confuse infrared thermal sights, Hezbollah guerillas crawl on all fours and tie on a “tail”—pretending to be a dog (while having a rocket launcher of their own strapped to their back). So, Joey shot the dog 'just in case' it was a guerilla.
It was a big dog.
It pretty much stopped the audition in its tracks. He was fifth and Stacy was sixth. Jesus. Glad I wasn’t last. She was like, “I don’t think I could top that.” So she said was from Kentucky and Mick made some comment how they were both from Hazzard county and made some joke and everyone laughed.
We did some quick scenes—Mick calls out a name and that person starts a scene and someone else joins them. I was in three I believe. I remember thinking how my first two characters were kinda low-status/low-energy/clingy types and that I wanted to shift gears for the third time out with a contrasting character. I can’t remember if I made it out again.
After a few minutes of this, we switched gears and took seats in the audience as two selected improvisers went up to do longer scenework. While sitting in the audience and with no stagelights in my eyes, I saw Josh Funk and Gelman among others watching the auditions. There must have been like 10 – 15 people watching the audition (not all were evaluating, but that’s sure a lot of people).
Anyways, I go up with Joey (Joel?), the Israeli Defense Force guy. We did a scene in a greenhouse where we grew pot. Very plotty and kinda blah. The only laugh was on the out line.
(Tangent--about laughs in auditions: I don’t care if I get laughs. I hope I do, but I don’t care if I don’t if my partner and I did good, involving scenework. However, it’s like insult to injury if you do a sucky, non-funny scene. It’s the silence after the scenes I’ve done lately that kills me. It’s not that good silence, the kind that means an audience was riveted and enthralled, but the bad silence, the kind that hangs there heavy and uncomfortable because everyone has now lost 5 minutes of their life to bad improv.)
Chidester did well. So did the girl he knew. The guy from Salsation did a scene with Stacy that was textbook on finding the game in a scene and heightening the fuck out of it. I was laughing hard at it.
And that was that. I didn’t even check my watch to see how long we went. I’m gonna guess maybe 20 minutes. I walked out, said howdy to bunch people I knew and shuffled out into the cold. Honestly, I gave serious thought to going and getting shitfaced I was so bummed at my performance."
(Bob is one of the nicest and funniest people you could ever know. Say howdy to him, you won't be sorry.)
posted by Sammy @ 3:58 PM
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