فصل 08

8

After the main stage shows, there was a sort of bar that opened next door to the theater called the Shed, where the apprentices performed cabaret-type songs and skits for any audience members who didn’t yet want to call it a night. On the main stage we were chorus members, bit players at best, but at the Shed show afterward, we were the stars. I personally wowed audiences by accompanying myself on songs with the acoustic guitar I’d brought from home, my greatness limited only by my dreams and the fact that I knew how to play just three chords. But that’s all you need for “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” my friends! At the Shed, the “stars” were also the waiters, so the storeroom in the back doubled as our backstage area and locker room. It was a chaotic jumble of costume pieces for our upcoming numbers, bar supplies, and personal stuff. The back room was also where they kept the Snak-Ens, an evil mix of delicious seasoned crackers and pretzels that I’m pretty sure the dastardly Gardetto’s company invented in an attempt to ruin my career, even though at the time I had no career to speak of. We weren’t allowed to indulge in the Snak-Ens, which were kept in giant garbage-bin-sized tubs in the storeroom—those were only for the PAYING CUSTOMERS. The theater owners were VERY strict about this. So I’m here to tell you, and any former employers (or health inspectors) who may be reading this, that we 100 percent DID NOT reach our grubby hands into the giant bins OVER AND OVER every night until we were sick with salt bloat. How DARE you imply such a thing! That summer, I also discovered the first alcoholic drink I actually liked the taste of, a drink that was very hip and happening at the time, and is still a sign of intellect and sophistication. I’m talking, of course, about the Fuzzy Navel. This nutrient-packed, classy combination of Snak-Ens and Fuzzy Navels was my dinner for two whole months.

Halfway through the summer, an incredible opportunity came up. An Equity part was going to be given to one of the apprentices. It was a smallish part, so to bring an Equity actor all the way from New York would be too costly. It was cheaper to just give one of the apprentices their card and pay them Equity wages for the two-week run. This was exactly the scenario I’d imagined, precisely the break I’d been hoping for! There was much excitement and discussion among the apprentices about the part, and also about what it required. The play was a farce, a broad comedy about two cheating husbands and the wives they’re lying to, and the role was a French maid that one of the husbands is caught having an affair with. When the maid and the husband are discovered in bed, the maid stands up in fright, and as she’s facing upstage, babbling in French, the blanket that’s been covering her falls, exposing her bare backside to the audience.

The rumor was that the director would only be bringing a few girls in to audition, and we wondered nervously whom he’d choose. The next day, a short list was posted, and my name was on it. I was thrilled and flattered. We then learned that the entire audition would consist of being brought into a room and showing our bare butts to the director. I wasn’t sure exactly how that would work (enter walking backward?), and I thought it was a little odd that we weren’t being asked to read even a small part of the actual scene, but I was still both thrilled and flattered. This was the sort of thing professional actresses were asked to do all the time. My Equity card was just a bare-butt-flash away!

The Chosen Butts became an instant club of sorts. We tried our best to be professional and not act overly excited, but it was clear we were bonded because of our excellent butts I mean acting ability. We didn’t want those of lesser butt to feel left out, but we’d subtly smile at each other in the hallways, pleased at having been singled out for our shapely butts I mean talent. The phrase “butt buddies” had never made so much sense!

The day of the audition came. We were asked to disrobe from the waist down in private, and when we were ready, two girls holding a sheet walked out slightly in front of us. We walked up behind them and turned around, the girls dropped the sheet for a brief moment for the director, then they put it back up and we all walked out together. During the entrance and exit, the director made innocuous small talk. His wife was sitting beside him, there to ensure we were comfortable. Everyone was very respectful. The whole thing was over so quickly, I barely had time to register any feelings about it at all. I walked out smiling, waved to the rest of my BBs, who were waiting to go in, got dressed, and went to a secluded place behind the theater, where I burst into tears.

There was nothing wrong with the way anyone conducted themselves that day. The audition process was thoughtfully executed. The play was silly and full of sexual innuendo, and nudity was called for in the script.

I just didn’t like it.

The audition made me feel vulnerable and just plain bad about myself. On top of that, I was embarrassed not to have thought the whole thing through more thoroughly. I wanted my Equity card so desperately, I hadn’t stopped to ask myself what I was comfortable doing in order to get it. In art, the painter presents his canvas. In acting, the canvas is you. Over the years, I’ve learned to have a sort of distance from myself in certain situations—I’ve regularly stripped down to nothing in front of a stranger in order to have a fitting, for example. As actors, we are poked and prodded by other artists whose contributions are vital to presenting the canvas at its best: hair, makeup, lighting, scenery. The canvas is given lines to say, someone else’s clothes to wear. In acting you have to have an objectivity that enables you to, at times, turn yourself over to someone else and let them do the painting. But this was my first experience paying more attention to the canvas part than the me part, and I realized both sides needed to line up. I’d thought it was mature and professional to do anything asked of me to get the job. I learned a little too late that day that maybe it was more complex than that.

The girl who got the part was an apprentice in her second or third year, a great comedienne with a great figure. She had no problem being semi-naked in rehearsals and seemed to really enjoy doing the show every night. There’s a lid for every pot, they say, and there’s definitely an actor for every role (and then some). The truth was, even if I’d gotten it, that part just wasn’t a good fit. The me of today often reads scripts I don’t connect with, and I’ve learned not to worry about it too much. If a story doesn’t resonate with me—even if it’s a really good one, even if it’s one I wish I could be part of—I just have to accept that I probably wouldn’t be as compelling as someone else could be in the role. And it’s become fairly easy to let them go.