I Have A Verb?

Auditions yesterday. I feel like they went well. I don't know if anything will come of them but I feel like I did a good job.
Went into work - opened the store - dashed downtown to Mad Cow for Antigone auditions. Got there early, walked around downtown listening to my Nano and trying to not feel sick and scared. Like, fuck it, you know? Whispered a little prayer to Anansi - 'Give me half of your charisma for just one minute' - Offered up favors and portions of my soul - that's how you gotta deal with these old gods, they always want favors. The prayer seemed to trick my brain, calmed me down.
The doors opened and I went inside. There's Peg O'Keefe, the director - and there's Alan Bruun, the producer. For a minute, in classic Josh style, I want to crumple into the floor and hide because he's seen me do this monologue -- everyone under the Sun has seen me do this monologue from Take Me Out. But, no, quick breath, fuck it....she hasn't seen me do it, go, go you bastard. Go.
And I do it. And it's good. No shame.
And Peg says, 'Very natural. I feel like your verb was something like, "to share", now do it again for us, you won't have to do the whole thing, do it again, and this time, Alan and I are foreigners, we've never seen a baseball game and I want your verb to be, "to convert" -- you're going to prove to us that this is going to change our lives. You can step forward and pierce the membrane, if you want and make it a little more intimate.'

Fooled you. I didn't even know that I had a verb. But okay, here goes.

And I do it again and it's different. I don't know how close to the mark I was with the "to convert" -- but it feels different. I may not have an actual craft but I take direction well. And they ask me to come back to the callback that night.

Go back to work, work three long, slow hours. Close the store, dash back to Mad Cow. See this old black bum, give him a dollar in quarters (it coulda been Anansi, for all I know) -- read a Creon/Haemon scene, watch some of the other peoples' scenes - strong stuff, a good group of people were left in that room, including a guy who was in Scapin with Todd.

If I'm going to hear anything, it'll be by the end of the week.

Drive like crazy to The Rep for the All In The Timing auditions. Cyd Stoll was checking people in, it's always nice to have somebody you know doing that. Ran into Kim Luffman (actually at both auditions), and Luerne. I went in and did my other monologue. The Durang. At this point in the day - I felt like I was slipping into a comfortable pair of jeans or wrapping myself in an old blanket. I know that Durang monologue and quite frankly, the two of us belong together. I should kiss Marcie full on the mouth for introducing us.

They love it. They laugh. I've never felt more at ease during an audition - maybe it was because I'd already done some hard stuff earlier, or maybe it was because I had nothing to lose - there's only one part in that show for me, my age range -- but fuck it all, I was funny as hell in there. I was relaxed, I was 'on', I could feel them bending to my will. I love making people laugh -- it's a fucking opiate. Afterwards, I got to read a scene from the show. But I didn't get a call about the callback tonight.

But yesterday was good. Not in a fake-my-lip-is-trembling-I-going-to-try-and-make-some-lemonade-outta-lemons way. It was just good. It felt good. Maybe nothing comes of any of it. Doesn't matter. I was a viable player in the game yesterday. No bone was tossed to me. I deserved to be there. And it felt good -- I didn't feel stupid or frightened or depressed or any of that shit. For a few minutes, I was pleased and at peace.

Then to finish off a wonderful day I went to Chipolte with Marcie. David joined us later. And after that I went to Kevin and Anna's and watched The L Word.