i hate ferrets
Tuesday, Feb. 03, 2004
Let’s see, how about I tell you about my audition I had a couple of weeks back?
I’m a Sunday Player with BATS Improv here in scenic San Francisco. That’s kind of the junior varsity of improvisers for BATS. For the past year, I’d been working hard to get good enough to be invited to join the Main Stage Company’s Guest Program. I would put it in all CAPS because that’s how important it was to me, but they hurt my feelings, so Initial Caps is all they get.
I spent roughly four nights a week for the past year in improv classes, shows, workouts, etc., so I would be ready.
The good thing -- and the bad thing -- about improv is there are no lines to memorize. Great if you have a crappy memory like mine, but scary for auditions, because we have absolutely no idea what we’re going to do beforehand. No fancy Tennessee Williams monologues. We just get on stage and wing it.
So my audition was on a Saturday afternoon. The rules: two candidates have 15 minutes (a measly 7 and a half minutes each) to woo the Main Stage Company with our improv talents. Twenty-seven people applied.
Oh, did I forget to mention I was in my bed enjoying a sticky, coughy, clammy cold coma one hour before my audition time of 3:45?
I did?
So, I scraped as much sick off my body as possible, downed a pint of Dayquil, and dizzily drove to the theater. I was paired with a cute, bubbly, and very young-looking actress type. They led us in. I don’t usually get too nervous, but the Dayquil paired with the MAGNITUDE of it all gave me a serious dry throat. But the letter-in-the-doorer person told us to leave everything in the lobby including my water. My wonderfully wet water!
Two of the Main Stage players, Laura Derry and Dave Dennison waited for us on stage. They would be improvising with us during our scenes and games. The peppy actress went first. And she did a good scene set in a health club. I didn’t pay too much attention because I was desperately trying to get water back in my mouth.
Then I was up. And did a scene with Dave Dennison, in which I was a telephone repairman and he was a sad sack whose neighbor was torturing him with cut telephone lines and topiary that suggested he was having an affair with his wife. Sounds better than it was. Dave was great; I was mediocre.
Then a game with perky actress. And then me. In a Dayquil panic, I chose to play "Animal People." It's a game where all the actors play humans that have a particular animal’s characteristics. When I asked out into the blinding lights for an animal to play, the response was … a ferret.
What the hell does a ferret do?
So, I’m not a Main Stage Company Guest.
Now the question is, what to do with all those free weekday nights.
Start dating semi-regularly? Write screenplays? Watch TV? Not sure yet, but if it’s interesting, I’ll let you know.
steve
