So!

Here’s what’s funny about acting as a career: you spend so much time not working, TRYING to find a job that when you DO find a job, it can be rather unsettling. Maybe anti-climactic.

By the time I booked a tour and got my Equity card, I was totally into the groove of auditioning being my job.

But then! Out of nowhere! I actually had a DIFFERENT, BETTER job to do. PERFORMING! JOY OF JOYS! Getting paid money to get on stage and be ridiculous! It felt so good! And when I wasn’t performing, I was seeing the country! I sang on stage at the Grand Ol’ Opry! I walked in Memphis with my feet ten feet off of Beale! I went for long runs in Atlanta and North Carolina and froze my butt off in Canada! And it was SO MAGICAL!

And then do you know what happened?

I had to come home.

Because the job was over.

And I was back to square one.

And ever since that time, with the exception of a few small gigs here and there, I have been auditioning again, as a job. Waiting to get back to that place where I can perform for money. (BUT NOT IN A STRIPPER KIND OF WAY.)

I can tell you honestly why I think it’s been so hard for me, not that it matters at this point but, I’ve analyzed this extensively (SURPRISE) and come to some not-so-interesting conclusions:

* I’m a very popular type in a very popular age category (read: white, 20-something, female)
* I snatched up my Equity card out of a feeling of desperation that I would never get another chance and didn’t fill out my résumé with other non-Equity credits before doing so meaning: my résumé is pretty sparse.
* When I got back from tour, the recession hit. Meaning: theaters closed and jobs were severely limited. Instead of competing with people with similar experience, I was now standing in line at open calls next to women with five Broadway credits to their name. Yes. Five.
* I’m honestly not the best musical theatre performer.

I was hesitant to write that last bullet point because it seems like the kind of thing you say when you want people to tell you NO NO, YOU ARE SO GREAT!!!

But it’s not said with any self-pity or any woe is me. It’s said because it’s true. In the musical theatre world today, should you happen to be a fan, you will find few shows that I could be a part of. I do not have the dance training required of me to tap like a crazy person in the ensemble and in terms of singing, right now the most cast-able quality is to sing like you are on American Idol.

I…

do not have that voice.

My voice is pretty! Trust me, I know! It’s sweet and clear as a bell. It’s what a Disney princess voice should sound like.

But, there aren’t many Disney princesses on Broadway anymore.

Now, we could get all in a huff about this (believe me, I’ve tried) or we could just accept what this means for our (my) career.

I’m making nice bulleted lists here but it’s worth noticing that it took me YEARS to come those realizations. YEARS. Years of going to audition after audition, getting coached, perfecting technique, taking class, meeting casting directors, meeting agents and one thousand million trillion “No thanks!” “Not for me!” “Not right for this project!” or just plain “No”.

And I felt like bashing my head against the wall because DOESN’T EVERYONE KNOW I AM FOLLOWING A F*CKING DREAM HERE? WHY IS THIS SO HARD?

Well. Because many other people are too. And honestly? Most of them are just much, much better than me in terms of talent. Work ethic? I can blow them all out of the water. Talent? I’m not quite there.

I sat down a few months ago with a dear friend who is also a casting director and asked him to be straight up. And not that his opinion is everyone’s opinion but it felt true and resonated with me.

“Laura, I have no doubt that the way you bust your ass, you will eventually get something. You will. Just because you keep showing up. But I do think you hover in the middle somewhere. More importantly, I think you can find a better use of your time. The best thing I’ve ever seen you do was perform the show you wrote yourself. It was funny, it was touching, it was pure you. That was way more interesting to me than anything else.”

And BOOM. It kind of solidified for me that I didn’t want to be spending so much time and energy auditioning for musicals when there may or not be a place for me in them. I thought about all the things that drove me nuts about it: the fact that I don’t have representation so every audition was a jam-packed open call. The fact that after I spent years fighting to book something, when I did, it lasted a few months and then I was immediately back where I started. The fact that recently, I was showing up to auditions and looking over the details of the contract and noting that I kind of would much rather stay in NYC at my temp job than do this show.

It was just such a negative outlook and I realized I had gained a realistic perspective but also a little bit of bitterness and weariness to go along with it. And maybe I was just dragging that around with me wherever I went, including (particularly?) into the audition room.

And how could I not?

It was hard to think positively about spending the past five years learning important lessons and growing as an artist and a person! WHAT A MAGICAL CREATIVE BEING I AM! I WANT TO TWIRL AROUND IN A FIELD SINGING THE SOUND OF MUSIC! THE HILLS ARE TRULY ALIVE!

Instead, all I could think about was spending the past five years running into a brick wall at full force over and over and over again and never changing my course.

And thus, I decided to change my course.

But how?

I DON’T KNOW LAURA, MAYBE YOU’LL TELL US TOMORROW!