A hah!

I finally hit the nail on the head this afternoon. I have been wondering why I have been so worried about this show opening, and subsequent articles coming out about it.

It's because I'm performing in my own first show.

It's strange, because this kind of thing happens all the time in other cities. It happened quite often in Cincinnati, frankly. Many shows I worked on with New Stage, the director would often put himself in shows if he felt no one else was right for the part.

Our auditions in mid-March were... sparse, for lack of a better word. I would have loved to find a young, high mixy/belter that could handle songs like Passover and Anytime. However, I was lucky to cast the roles that I did. Bryan had already signed on a few months before. Had Dana and Jackie not shown up, quite frankly, I would have been screwed. Let's not even mention Pat, who showed up on the last day of auditions and totally wowed us with his gorgeous baritone voice. But if he hadn't come in? I don't know what we would have done. I had two other women sing for me. That was it. Both were low altos, and probably not capable to handle the high stuff with ease. So I made the game-time decision to just do it. We made it by the skin of our teeth. What would we had done if we decided to do a huge show with a big ensemble? We would've been toast. I almost had to call off Bees, because I was short two men. I had many talented women show up for auditions, enough to cast Kimberly and Bees both, and had to turn some women down. Thank the FSM that Aaron and Dustin were so awesome, I put them in Kim, too. But for Bees? I actually had to solicit people at a Prenzie party to see if they would be in my play. Lucky me, they agreed.

My beef is that folks will see me as some sort of self-casting freak who thinks her shit doesn't stink, when honestly, it couldn't be more far from the truth.

Is this what it is going to be like in the future, too? While I enjoy performing, I'd so much rather be behind the scenes and create rather than be on the stage. I hear from my friends at Prenzie, Green Room, and My Verona that it's like pulling teeth to get people to audition. Lucky for them, they end up getting top notch actors for their shows, but then they run the risk of crticism for casting the same folks in every production. What else are they to do?? It's just a double-edged sword. You can't win either way.

I truly hope that, in the future, I'll have to beat auditionees off with a stick!