I’ve got an audition at 8:25 tonight!  Woo Hoo!  It’s for the Vagina Monologues.

[I’ll take a break here for you all to get through the sophomoric tittering that the title almost always causes…don’t worry, it’s OK.  It’s supposed to do that.  Vagina is a funny word.  Also, the name conjures up a mental picture of a talking vagina…not only that, but a vagina that just keeps talking, on and on and on…like some sort of bad comic book villain.]

So, some of you may not know how I got into acting.  I really owe it all to my dear friend, Damian…who is feeling down-right crappy about himself lately, so it’s important that I say this:  Damian saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.  He got behind me and pushed me to do something I didn’t think I could do, and it was a life-transforming experience.  He also made me face some demons I’d been avoiding, and showed me how I could make them serve me as an actor.  He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, and he put me through hell for my own good…which is one of the most true measures of a friend.  I am stronger, braver, and happier because Damian is my friend.

So my friend Damian, from the writer’s group, wrote this play and entered it in the Fringe Fest… and he sunk all of his money, time and love into it…and then had trouble casting it.

So much so that he somehow got to the point where he thought putting me in it was a good idea.  It was an interesting conversation…sort of a reverse audition:

Damian:                  “Would you be in my play?”

Me (laughing) :       “Sure, you know I can’t act, right?”

Damian:                   “But you’re in that film group.”

Me (still laughing)   “Yeah, but I haven’t been near either business end of a camera.

                                   Plus, I’m scared shitless of social situations, crowds and doing

                                   anything where people are going to be watching me and judging

                                   me.”

Damian:                  “…but you’ll do it, right?”

Me:                          “OK, but I won’t play Meg”   (Meg was a psycho-killer and a sexual

                                                                                  predator with rage disorder)

Damian:                   “Why don’t you read for all the parts, and we’ll see what happens.”

I’ll skip a lot of the neurotic rambling about why I didn’t want to do it.  Most of the people in my life have heard enough about it…fear…angst…childhood trauma…yadda yadda yadda.  I decided to do it, despite the fact that he wanted me to play Meg.  Why?  Because I was scared to death at the thought of it…which is a sure signal that it is probably something that I should do…just because it’s not healthy to let that kind of fear run the front part of your brain.

Let’s face it, no matter who you are, fear rules a significant potion of the rear brain.  It’s got a whole playground of tie-ins to the autonomic functions.  It doesn’t need to run conscious decision-making too.

I’ve spent a fair portion of my life making fear my bitch, and I’m not about to stop now.

Plus, I’ve always sort of thought that maybe it was something I could do.  Everyone thinks they can act.  We hear that old saw over and over again.  Favorite objects of fun are average people who think they are brilliant, low-class clods who try to act cultured, and talentless losers who think they can act.  Lots of people told me that I couldn’t.  But there was this small, timid part of me that said “No…I think maybe I could…how hard could it be?”  The rest of me chuckled politely at the inner idiot, and moved on.

But here was someone practically begging me to try it out in his play.  When was this ever going to happen again?  Whoever was running the universe dumped this huge, scary monster gift right in my lap...if I walked away from this I would forever view myself as a punk and a poser. 

Me:                “I don’t want to risk ruining your play when I prove to you that I can’t act.”

Damian:         “You know what would REALLY screw it up?  Not having someone playing Meg.”

Fair enough.  Can’t argue with that.  So I said yes, and went on vacation…

Only to come back and find that it wasn’t a bizarre fever dream, and this shit was really going to go down.

Fuck.

But it worked out.  I didn’t screw up the play.  Made a few mistakes, but my fellow actors covered for me.  I got a lot of compliments and none of my friends thought I was a psycho.  Not only that, but all the crap that I dug up to get into the character failed to take over…

I got to pull out every person I've ever encountered that shared aspects with this character.  I looked them in the eye and said "This is what you are, and guess what?  You gave me a bunch of shit I didn’t want, but now I can use it for something I DO want, and put you away when I don't need you anymore."  Boy, did THAT feel good.  Talk about power.  I took out experiences and emotions that I had kept locked up in the basement for years, and found out that it’s not as big, smelly or scary as it was when I stuffed them down there…I found out that I can pull this sort of shit off and have fun with it and have critics say “The acting is good.”

It’s been a good, if difficult, experience. 

So the moral is:  No matter how big and scary something is, you can talk yourself into making it bigger and scarier with just a little imagination and trauma-fueled neurosis.

In the tradition of Aesop, I offer an alternative moral:  You’ve had enough assholes in your life telling you that you are not good enough, not smart enough, not able to do any of the things that you secretly dream about in front of the mirror when you are brushing your teeth…don’t do their work for them.

Or:

If the universe gives you a big scary push in a direction you want to go anyway…don’t waste energy second guessing it.  Run with it.  What’s the worst that can happen?  After all, the stuff that is causing the fear...that ALREADY happened.  It's not like it's going to go away if you give in to it and pass up opportunities.  The only thing that gets you is sitting right where you are, with the same fear and the same sense of self-doubt...and who wants that?

[Editor's note:  I now had TWO auditions tonight.  One is at 9:00pm for a production called Girls Got Pluck.  Everyone wish me lots and lots of luck]