I've been told that there is an etiquette expected for everything. Well, most everything. Social ideas and rules that determine acceptable behavior. Even to those who act, sing or dance — there are things you probably should do and probably shouldn't do if you want to be cast.
Even the most obnoxious thespian won't burn a bridge unless they have to, or don't mean to. While performing you are revealing truths and lies about yourself. It's your job and your life mixed together. Essentially everything you do in your personal sphere affects your public sphere. The thing is in acting, there is a thinner line between personal emotions and professional relationships. One more catch: there are only a handful of jobs and buckets full of hopefuls. In theater, rejection happens all the time, and far more often than most of would like.
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It isn't easy being an actor — despite what some white colar would say. It takes guts.
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SO, take a cast list. It takes guts to put yourself out there to be judged and publically accepted or denied. Auditions are brave things to do, remember that.
Even the word cast list makes my heart race. They are just these weird public announcements (slips of paper taped to a door, sometimes in sharpie on the back of a flyer) in performing careers that determine if you have a job or not. Not only that, it has social influence and consequence on your experience, friendships, and wellbeing. Being constantly bombarded with failure while also being a sensitive person is a strange, wicked thing.
As I was saying... The etiquette upon not seeing your name is as follows: don't show that you're upset. Don't you dare contact the director until a week later. Rest easier because I've heard directors actually don't want to cut you and don't have it out to get you (most of the time). Don't talk about it with anyone of your friends, especially those that have gotten in because: it will upset you further and people will talk.
If you name is on the list, you've made it! Collect $200 after you pass go and pick up your free script because you're about to set off on a journey. You're allowed to be pleased but cautioned not to seem too overjoyed as not to upset Emily, who hasn't been cast... again. If you don't get in and are still interested in the script, you can always buy a green cover from Amazon for $8.99.
I've been told that when a cast list goes up, (a physical copy not one of those massive CC'd emails or a Facebook auditioning page post) it is usually hung at the hull of the ship. It's the crux of emotional tension: hopes, fears, romance, malice, jealousy, pity, acclaim, and prestige. It is the central hub where eyes and ears converge to process vital information: who among us made the cut? More importantly, who among us did not make the cut?
You tell yourself to stop combing the list and realize it quick: you aren't on there.
They don't want you. Or do they just want someone else more? Sometimes your heart tightens and threatens to break. Other times, a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, "I'll get it next time." There were no parts of that show for me. I just messed up the lines in the audition. The director never liked me. In black and white the list sorts those needed with those deemed expendable.
If you are deemed expendable, you do not get work. You do not get to make these new memories with like-minded, creative people. You do not get to live the life of that story in the visceral way your peers can experience it. Put this way, performing seems like a cruel, stifling practice — saturated in hierarchy and discrimination. It always has been this way.
Sometimes, your heart lights up like it seldom does anymore. You feel a flood of achievement coarse through you. That feeling of unity — being an integral piece to a puzzle is addictive. To be needed. Acting is much more than a solo endeavor, it's collaboration hinging on kinship and synergy. It's a wonderful thing to be a part of a high functioning team.
One of my acting professors once told me: "it's not so much about the individual rejections. To be a successful actor, it's about how many rejections can you take before you quit." Then this sinking, intrusive thought finds its way inside your head: "what if I'll never be good enough? I'll never have what they are looking for?" And that is the question that triggers a fight or flight. Do I stay? Or do I go? How in the world can I live out these dreams that I love when these feelings of exclusion, invalidation, and inadequacy threaten me at every corner?
They tell you to combat these feelings of hopelessness, you must stop comparing yourself to other people.
At least, they insist you should monitor your active comparisons because it only brings you pain. The pain you can learn from.
Acting is incredibly personal so it's unrealistic to expect actors not to take judgment personally.
What hurts the most in the grieving process of parts is the lost lives you could have had. As characters, you can live so many different lives. If I'd been cast in "Annie," I'd get to discover the joy of finding a home for the first time. If I'd been cast in "Peter Pan," I'd get to fly to Neverland across the stars. But, when you don't make the cut, you can't be a part of something. Not even in the same room. It makes you feel unwelcome. It makes you feel the black sheep of a big, disjointed family.
Family.
Family is a word used often in the theater world. Intense connections can be forged on and off stage during a show, in a cast, ensemble, or troupe.
I've learned that in a family, you have to pull your own weight. Only in theater, your family isn't related by blood and circumstance. In theater, a family is a group of people carefully selected to compliment each other who you get to spend the next six months getting to know.
SO what I'm saying is: don't let people make you think you're overreacting when you don't get the part. You couldn't have prepared for months and imaged yourself in a show for longer — and it's easy to get mad at yourself and those around you when you Dontnod know whose fault it is that you're your vision didn't come true.
I've learned the key to surviving this rollercoaster of emotions called a career is to take the potential energy stores gathered from your experiences, relationships, and rejections to feed your passions. Validate the road you are by making the choice to continue, even when it feels like you have no choice. The disappointment you feel is normal. It's par for the course.
Sign up for another audition or two this month. Keep trying to get out there in the face of adversity.