I was invited to audition for Shakespeare, Richard III, this last week.   *CLAP OF THUNDER*

If you’re not terrified by that sentence then you either aren’t an actor, or you’re good at auditioning for Shakespeare.

In either case, you’re lucky.

Let me be very clear. I love Shakespeare. I love it very much. I love watching it and reading it and I’d love to perform it…I just don’t have a great track record when auditioning for it.

When I saw the e-mail my initial reaction was to delete the message and burn my computer to the ground while crying. Instead, I took a deep breath, blew out the matches and talked to Stax. She assured me that burning the computer would not actually destroy the invite to audition and that I should probably accept because it would be “good for me”.

So I did.  (But I kept the matches on hand in case of emergencies)

I had to learn a piece from the play, avoiding the primary roles such as Richard. Or the slightly lesser known…Steve.

That was easy,  although I probably looked like a lunatic wandering around Chicago mumbling about a “Beauty waning and distressed widow”. But then I started rehearsing the monologue. Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

And then…the audition came.

The hardest part of auditioning for Mr. Peare for me is preventing myself from a crescendo into a scream speech due to a mixture of fear and the inability to control my voice.  I wish I were kidding. I did this in the last audition I had, I basically screamed at the auditors for 1 minute and walked away in embarrassed silence. Needless to say, I did not get the part.

Thankfully, that did not happen this time. Although, I did manage to walk in and tell several jokes, most of which didn’t seem to land, right before starting to audition. And then, I blacked out and woke up at home three days later.

I’m kidding…It was only two.

Really, it wasn’t so bad, in fact I think I actually did pretty well and I’m looking forward to my next opportunity.

Just goes to show that you should never give up on something even though it terrifies you and makes you want to set fire to your belongings.

The Blob Acting Chicago Milkshakes shakespeare Yelling