If at first you don’t succeed…
…plot the deaths of those that you view responsible.
Just. Kidding.
But I bring it up because, in a situation out of the Second Chance Playbook, I checked the Performing Arts section of the Chicago Reader’s Classifieds, and lo and behold, I experience deja vu [1]. Smack dab in the middle of the list is a familiar ad, telling me that some group calling themselves the Neo-Futurists is auditioning for some show called “Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind.” Furthermore, they are auditioning men. Furthermore, they are auditioning men at the beginning…of MARCH.
My thought process goes something like this.
You’re kidding. You’re kidding. You’re kidding. (Repeat.)
Then I think, did one of the two people who beat me out last November drop out, or otherwise prove incompatible with the group? Or did another of the core ensemble decide to leave (as John Pierson did, to finish his novel in Europe), or did they somehow not take into account that Greg Allen, Supra-Genius, is going to be in St. Louis for awhile, teaching a class on Neo-Futurism, although I somehow doubt that could be the case?
And then I think, dare I try auditioning again, considering the soulcrush-lite I experienced when I was phoned with a rejection last time? Can I pull myself out of the hole I hid in after walking away, tail betwixt my legs? And then: of course I can, in fact, I rather should, considering the positive response I received last time, which gives me a bit of an advantage over anybody who has not yet auditioned for “Too Much Light,” but then I wonder, did I give it all I had last time, and can no longer muster the same skill that wrote my last six audition pieces? (The response to this is, if that were truly the case, that if I really believed it, I had no business auditioning for “Too Much Light” in the first place.) Then again, considering that they’ve already seen a little of what I can do, maybe they will ask me for something brand-new, and then I’ll have to wrack my brain to find a tone or emotion to insert into whatever new audition pieces; and then again, maybe my Neo-Futurist sponsor will be as kind as Steve Mosqueda was last time, and tell me precisely what sort of thing they’re looking for. There’s also the fact that after last callback, I felt so positive that I did a few what-the-hell-why-not short short plays, and some of them are worthy of submission to a second audition. But if, but if, but if.
Tonight I am going to see the new primetime NF show, “43 Plays for 43 Presidents.” Several of the NF’s who saw my audition will be in the show, and perhaps they still know me by name, which would be even more encouraging. I will ask them directly if I really saw what I thought I saw [2].
Forgot to conclude my thought processes. I will audition again. The correct second half of the subject is, after all, “…try, try again.”
Of course, literally translated, that means I do not try more than three times. After this audition, and the next audition, there will be no more auditions for the show. Not for awhile, anyway.
And who am I kidding? Nobody, really.
My mind is latched onto several different plays at once, including the few I’m thinking of for a solo NF audition (“Baby Elephant Walk,” my confession of very, very young Republicanism, still holds promise). I was also told that Lincoln Center Playlab is looking for a forty-five minute to an hourlong one-act–my original MO, as practiced all throughout college–dealing with social politics, racial diversity, or the end of the world–also a bit of my MO, considering social issues playwriting I did in college for Inner Voices–or all three. And it is also needed by the end of this month. And when the proposal was first handed to me, I thought, nah, I don’t have anything in my head of that nature; and then, about an hour or so ago, a brief outline for “Man One” pops in my head. It pushes and shoves and stands on the same thin platform as the NF pieces, and the two-act play I currently work through with single-minded determination, “The Accident God.” It would be really nice if (a), I had all the time in the world, and (b), I weren’t feeling like dehydrated crap, the result of either finally succumbing to the illness of my girlfriend, or the side effects of a multivitamin cocktail I took this morning out of curiosity. Instead of pep and energy, I feel feverish, and yet I’m shivering like a whore in church.
Wanna. Go. Home. Bleaaaah.
[1] I was told once, that Deja Vu is nothing more than your brain catching up with your perceptions. That is, you see, your brain catalogs it, and then you both see and observe, and your brain compares it against what it saw mere seconds ago, and you think…”Huuuh. Deja vu.”
[2] Speaking of paranoid, my check for the short short story prize has yet to arrive. Until it does, the imp in the back of my mind needles me into thinking that it was all a hoax, that somewhere over in Cleveland, somebody is laughing their ass off at my naivete. But I have no real reason to think that yet; the publication date of the magazine that lists the winners isn’t due until April or May, so maybe they’ll send it then. In the meantime, the imp needles and needles and needles.
Current music: Lauryn Hill, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”
Creative Control 