The Audition Must Go On

 

 

As an actress, I've been on many auditions, but I've only been on one stand-up comedy audition. Of all the things I do outside of teaching for a living, comedy is the newest. The day before the scheduled audition, a tooth broke and that had been one of the teeth my replacement teeth hooked onto. I tried all kinds of adhesives for teeth but this was a more complicated situation. I had heard all kinds of stories about how if you don't show up for something in comedy where you are expected, you are basically done. So I had to go. In acting, the likelihood of seeing someone I know at the audition is small, so if it goes badly, no one else has to know. In comedy, the chance of seeing someone I know is great. If it had been an acting audition, I would have told them the truth and cancelled. Life would go on.     

                                                            

 

So my choice of looks were using the replacement teeth and having one dark space instead of a tooth like the altered advertisements on the subway walls, or not using the replacement teeth and having the Bugs Bunny look. Either was horrible to me. A co-worker had suggested I use the situation and ask if there's a dentist in the house. I told him that I wasn't ready to present myself to the world like that yet, and that I still considered myself hot and sexy. That's when another co-worker walked by and only hearing the "hot and sexy" part, said, "Oooooooh, I see." See how rumors can start right at the Xerox machine?

 

                                                        

 

Another problem was I had been doing stand-up for only a few years and very spottily due to problems and job schedules. So I didn't have lots of material. I felt I had to use my original set because I wasn't as confident about newer stuff I'd written. That original material does not go well with a woman with missing teeth. I felt like a fool talking about how there wasn't much difference between me and a woman in her twenties. I did not have the experience and skill to alter the material to at least have said something like, "well, except for the pink lungs, flat stomach, and full set of teeth."

 

                                                                                                          
I was so concerned about my lack of teeth showing that I spaced out on the red light. I didn't even register it as for me when it began flashing. Then the host came on stage, and I still finished my set. Then I saw the flashing light and it connected in my brain that I was supposed to have gotten off the stage for a while already. So though I showed up and kept my appointment, I did commit a cardinal sin in the world of stand-up. It wasn't out of nerviness but rather due to nervousness. What a screw-up I was. Plus I hardly got laughs from a tired audience who had just seen a pro show and now had to sit through us.

 

 



 

 

I went back to my seat next to Lisa Harmon and Shaun Eli. I was so embarrassed. Lisa was unhappy over her own audition though her pearly whites were beautiful. Shaun was very kind to me at that moment. He said something like "We all screw up" or something to that effect, and it did matter. He made me feel like I hadn't done the worst thing ever.

 

We all waited for our moment with the man who would tell us if we passed or not.  If I had been told that I should try again after getting my teeth fixed, I'd have understood.    



 

If I were told that I didn't honor the light, and they couldn't take a chance like that in a show, I would have been unhappy but I would have understood why they felt that way.

                                                                                                                       

I was told I was too dirty for them.    
   

 

 

                                                                                      

Mindy Matijasevic