That's what...three in less than two weeks? Shall we try for five?

Tonight I had my first, "Ok, thank you! Nice to meet you." Those words are very nice to hear, polite. In ordinary circumstances one would feel, mm...benign about hearing "Ok, thank you!" In the middle of an audition, those words are unpleasant, to say the least. I got to experience them firsthand tonight.

I prepared a monologue and two songs because they asked for that. I spent quite some time searching for appropriate things to sing, as - lately - I don't really consider myself a singer. I'm an actor who can carry a tune. I was worried about my voice because I'd had to make up for a malfunctioning microphone earlier in the day by pushing my voice more than usual. My voice was tired, I was tired.

Nonetheless, I got to the audition site, did a quick shake out in the bathroom and was feeling better. I went in to the audition room, sang my first song, it went better than I thought, we chatted a bit, then they said, "Ok, thank you! Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming out." We shook hands, and I collected my music and left the room. If anyone had looked closely at my face they would have thought that I had gas: my mouth was doing funny things and so were my eyes. I wanted to appear calm in the face of rejection, and I did very well until I got in my car.

I'm not sure I can live somewhere where I don't have a car to cry in.

An actor can never know what the reasons are for his or her not getting the role. There are many, many reasons, and usually a director can know within a few minutes whether or not the person standing before them is someone they want to see more of. And I can only say with any confidence that I wasn't right for what they were doing, and so they decided not to waste my time. That was nice of them.

I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to cut singing out of my billable skills or not, and if I'm going to stop going to auditioning for musicals. It's great to be able to audition for as much as possible, but I don't know that it's getting me anywhere. Singing may fall under the heading of "Things I'll Do Only If I Must."

PS-I don't really feel like celebrating anything today.