Dying to Audition, page 2
part #1 of A Como Lake Players Mystery Series
“Amanda from Private Lives,” Susan said as she reviewed her position on stage and found her light. “By Noel Coward,” she added with a smile.
“Yes, I’m familiar,” Leah replied, grinning at the woman’s spunky attitude.
“’I think very few people are completely normal really,’” Susan Whithers began, adopting an on-again, off-again, British accent, “’deep down in their private lives. It all depends on a combination of circumstances. If the various cosmic thingummies fuse at the same moment, and the right spark is struck, there’s no knowing what one mightn’t do.’”
Once she’d finished her monologue–which Leah noted was ‘very, very good indeed’—she read through the Lady Bracknell scene, with Alex playing the part of Jack Worthing. She was much more subtle than the previous two actresses who had auditioned, and she made Leah laugh more than once, particularly in the way she brought the scene to a close.
“’Me, sir!,” Susan bellowed, as she stood up from one of the two chairs Kanisha had place on the stage, and advanced on Alex. “’What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!’”
They finished the scene and Leah asked her to do it once more, this time adding as much indifference as possible to their conversation.
“For example,” Leah suggested, “don’t even bother looking at Jack in the scene. Unlike the other characters in the play, Lady Bracknell is really allowed to play right to the audience.”
Susan Whithers took the direction effortlessly and Leah felt the second reading was even better than the first.
“That was fantastic,” Leah said, jumping up to shake hands with the older woman as she stepped down from the stage. “Just really, really nice.”
“Thank you,” Susan said shyly as she carefully descended the stairs. “I was afraid I might be a little rusty. I must be honest, I haven’t performed in a while.”
Leah glanced down at the woman’s freshly-printed resume, noting a string of credits. “You’ve done quite a bit,” she began, but the older woman waved it away.
“Mostly ingénues. You’ll notice I’ve artfully left the dates off the resume,” she said with a sly smile. “So as to bury the evidence, as it were.”
“Not in the least,” Leah said. “You were terrific.”
There was a moment of awkward silence, which Susan broke as she handed the scene back to Leah.
“Well, thank you so much for seeing me,” she said.
“Thank you for coming in.”
As the older woman made her way up the theater’s main aisle, Leah turned to Alex, who was now standing on the edge of the stage. They both nodded in silent agreement and Leah punctuated their excitement with a quick thumbs up.
“She’s the one to beat,” Alex said quietly.
“Well, let’s see if anyone can,” Leah said as she added Susan Whithers’ acting resume to her growing stack of papers and returned to her seat.
The next three Bracknells didn’t come close to the standard that Susan Whithers had set, and then Leah went through a short and mostly depressing run of Cecilys.
Leah’s notes on this parade of ingénues indicated her lack of enthusiasm in the actresses, while she also noted that—oddly enough—two of them performed the same monologue: Val’s “So, the day after I turned 18” speech from A Chorus Line.
The third Cecily did a piece as Lucy from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” and given the way she performed it, Leah was certain the girl was not consciously aware of the fact that she was doing a scene from a comedy.
Alex read with the three and all Leah could think while listening to them was what a shame it was that Alex wasn’t going to be in this production. Of course, he’d played Jack before, so he held a distinct advantage. But his sharp, comic timing simply highlighted the lack of any humor coming from his scene partners.
Next up they had another older actor, who introduced himself as Duncan Lundeen. He said he was reading for the part of Reverend Chasuble.
“And what are you going to do for us tonight?” Leah asked after introductions had been made.
“I’ll be performing a stanza or two from Easter, 1916, by William Butler Yeats,” Duncan said in a clipped British accent, which he’d been using since walking into the room.
Leah wasn’t entirely certain whether he was putting on the accent or not, but she settled back as he spoke, his soft brogue gaining in volume as he recited.
“’Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?’” he began. “’That is Heaven’s part, our part / To Murmur name upon name, as a mother names her child / when sleep at last has come / on limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; was it needless death after all?’”
He finished his recitation, stepped back and bowed slightly, indicating that he was done with his monologue.
“That was lovely,” Leah said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had an actor recite poetry as their audition piece. That’s a first.”
“Then it’s a night of firsts all around,” Duncan said with a wide smile. “An evening worth remembering. When past meets present.”
“Would you like to read a short scene as Reverend Chasuble?”
“With all my heart.”
He and Alex quickly launched into the short scene, with Alex taking on the role of Jack, as they discussed the untimely death of Jack’s fictitious brother, the scoundrel Earnest. In just a matter of seconds, Leah was transported as the two fine actors tore through the scene.
While they performed, Leah made a couple quick notes on the audition: ‘Duncan Lundeen. Simply wonderful, he read Yeats, agreed it’s a night of firsts. Perfect for Chasuble.’
Then it was on to two more Cecilys, two Gwendolyns, and then three Jacks and a couple Algernons. The first Jack was played by one of the actors from the theater’s recent production of Arsenic and Old Lace. He had played one of the policemen—Officer Brophy–and despite her best efforts, that’s the name Leah always associated with him. He hadn’t been a great actor then and he still wasn’t, but he was game, and he and Alex had a nice chemistry together on stage.
He thanked Leah at the end of the audition and then threw a wave to Alex, adding in “See ya later, bro!”
Alex silently returned the wave and then, after he’d left, turned to Leah.
“Some guys can make bro work,” he admitted with a sad shake of his head. “It’s just never been in my wheelhouse.”
The best Jack of the three was new to her, a young actor named Ryan Hall, who—in a halting, mumbling introduction—explained that he was new to the Twin Cities. His resume, however, was impressive and he perfectly affected the haughty charm of Jack in his short scene, with Alex playing the playful Algernon. Although dynamic on-stage, once he was out of character, he was once again immediately shy, hardly able to look Leah directly in the eye.
Although she had seen enough to know he was terrific, she gave him a bit of direction—“Let’s do it again, and this time be less concerned about the dedication on the cigarette lighter”—and watched him perform the scene again, just because he was so much fun to watch. And once again, he nailed it.
After she thanked him and double-checked the conflicts he had noted on his audition form, Ryan scurried up the aisle and out of the theater.
“Do you know him?” Leah asked, turning to Alex after the shy actor had departed.
“No, but I’m sure I’ll get to know him,” Alex said dryly. “As I’m going to be losing a lot of parts to him.”
Several more actors paraded through, many of them unmemorable and others even more so. And then Leah saw a delightful Miss Prism candidate, an older woman named Marcy Hallberg. She was a small, grey-haired lady who perfectly affected the bird-like quality Leah was looking for.
For her audition piece, Marcy did a speech from Mrs. Warren’s Profession, which Leah wrote in her notes was “charming.” She then took the Miss Prism pages and read a short scene, with Alex playing Reverend Chasuble.
Leah felt the actress brought a real poignancy to the final line in the scene.
“’And you do not seem to realize, dear Doctor,’” Marcy said as Miss Prism, “’that by persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful; this very celibacy leads weaker vessels astray.’”
When she left the stage, Alex gave Leah a secretive ‘thumbs up,’ indicating he was equally impressed with her.
Over the next two hours, Leah then saw four more Bracknells, six Cecilys, three Gwendolyns, four each of Jack and Algy, and three each of Miss Prism and Reverend Chasuble. While she recognized several faces from past productions she had seen in her short time at the theater—and noted from resumes that others had been performing on and off at the theater for years—she was also delighted to see that at least a few of the auditioners were new to the Como Lake Players.
Back when she had been regularly performing at the community theater level, Leah had always resented directors who cast the same actors over and over in all their shows. She was determined not to let that happen while she was in charge at the Como Lake Players. And certainly not while she was directing.
It was nearly eleven when the final actor walked into the theater for her audition. It was another hopeful Lady Bracknell, which Leah felt bookended the evening just perfectly. Her name was Rebecca Flanders and Leah immediately apologized for the long wait.
“No problem,” the older woman said with a genuine smile. “It gave me a chance to study the sides, chat with old friends and hear the latest gossip. All in all, an evening well spent.”
“Plus you get to audition,” Leah said, sounding perhaps a bit too perky. She always felt guilty for making actors wait, but the cattle call system employed by the theater made that an inevitability. She made a mental note to bring that up to the Board, to see if they couldn’t switch to an appointment-based system in the future. “So, what is your audition piece tonight?”
“Well, I’m assuming you’ve heard all the favorites so far this evening,” Rebecca said. She quickly—and accurately—named off many of the audition pieces that had been performed throughout the long audition process. “So I thought I’d do something a little less common. This is Nadya, from Tom Stoppard’s Travesties.”
She stepped to the center of the stage and then launched into her one-minute monologue, employing what sounded to Leah like a perfect Russian accent. Leah also recognized the text, realizing the actress had strung together a couple of speeches that Nadya–the wife of Lenin–gives in the show to form this hybrid monologue.
Rebecca concluded with the most heartbreaking part, where she describes how, while her husband was in prison, she stood on the same spot at the same time every day, hoping to catch a glimpse of him as he was led out to the exercise yard.
“But he never saw me. Something went wrong. I forget what,” she said. And then she stepped back, signaling that her monologue was completed.
Leah stared at her for a long moment, before realizing that it was her job at this point to speak.
“Oh, yes, thank you,” she finally sputtered. “That was terrific. Just terrific.”
“Thanks, I’ve been looking for a chance to do that one,” Rebecca said, looking a bit embarrassed at the level of Leah’s praise.
“Nicely done,” Leah said, looking down at her notes and realizing she hadn’t written anything except the woman’s name and ‘Lady Bracknell.’
“Thanks,” Rebecca said again. She looked over at Alex, who was sitting in the front row, several seats down from Leah.
“Should we read?” he said, recognizing that Leah was caught in a mental playback loop of some kind. “The Bracknell scene?”
“Yes, of course, please do,” Leah said, regaining control of her brain finally. “This is Alex, he’ll be reading with you. Do you have the sides?”
Rebecca held up the two-page, stapled scene.
“Terrific,” Leah said. “Whenever you’re ready.” Leah sat back as the two actors began the scene.
While Rebecca had been amazing in her short monolog as Nadya, she seemed less confident in this new scene. But Leah chalked that up to her being a strong actress, just not a great cold reader.
As she had done for all the other actresses that evening, Leah chuckled at the funny lines, providing encouragement that was often hard to come by in the large, empty auditorium. The scene went along fine, without any real highs or lows, but certainly well done for a first read.
She was particularly pleased with how Rebecca, as Bracknell, virtually threw away one of the character’s most famous lines—“A handbag!”—opting to do exactly the opposite of what most other actresses that evening had chosen to do. In fact, one actress had said the two words so loudly that it had made Leah involuntarily wince.
“That was great, thanks so much for coming in,” Leah said when they reached the conclusion of the scene, a scene she had heard probably about twenty times (or more) that evening. It might be the sheer repetition, Leah thought, which was working against her assessment of this poor but excellent older actress. “We’ll be announcing callbacks later in the week,” she added.
“Thanks, it was fun,” Rebecca said as she handed her completed script to Alex. “Thanks for seeing me,” she added, then made her way out of the theater.
“I’ve got some tough choices,” Leah said after the older actress had gone. “Thank goodness for callbacks.”
“Ah, callbacks are for chickens,” Alex said with a grin as he took the stairs off the stage two at a time. “When I direct, I decide right after the auditions are done.”
“Don’t you want to see your possible choices side-by-side?” Leah said as she gathered her notes.
“Why bother? I’ll see them side-by-side for four weeks of rehearsals.”
“But what if they’re the wrong height,” Leah said quickly. “Or something.”
“The wrong height for what?”
She shrugged. She really didn’t have a good answer.
“I guess it’s because I’ve always done it that way,” she finally said. “Now do you want to help me narrow down the list for callbacks?”
“That is what I live for,” Alex intoned and the two sat down and began to go through Leah’s notes, with Alex contributing the occasional opinion or joke or wisecrack.
It was, Leah realized while they were doing it, one of the best parts of the evening.
Chapter Three
“Auditions are hard.”
Gloria looked up from her salad, clearly surprised by Leah’s apparent non sequitur. “Excuse me?”
Leah shook her head. “Sorry, my mind keeps drifting. We held auditions last night for Earnest, and I can’t stop weighing my choices—or lack of choices, in some cases—over and over in my head.”
“I was going to ask you how those went,” Gloria said as she stabbed a hard-to-pin-down cherry tomato on her plate. “But then I got started on the whole new boyfriend thing and everything went south.”
Leah laughed at Gloria’s precise recap of their conversation so far. They were dining in the plush restaurant buried within the large, Guthrie Theater complex where Gloria worked—the largest professional theater in the Midwest, a world away from Leah’s small theater, The Como Lake Players.
Their conversation had, so far, entirely revolved around Gloria’s latest, not-likely-to-last relationship. A story in miniature which captured an accurate snapshot of most of her relationships: spontaneous, passionate, problematic and ultimately doomed. But always a great story in the re-telling.
As with most of Gloria’s stories, it began innocuously enough with her having a couple glasses of wine at some new, impossible-to-get-into hotspot, and then spiraled into a debauched tale of lust at first sight.
“Anyway, the last I saw of him, he was wearing one shoe and holding the other, his shirt was torn, and he was falling into an Uber outside my apartment,” Gloria said, her tale obviously winding down.
“This was the guy from the bar who claimed to be Idris Elba’s brother?”
“No, not that loser,” Gloria said with a chuckle. “I mean, he was cute and all, but not worthy of more than a couple or three drinks and a laugh. I left him on the curb when I jumped into my Uber.”
Leah wrinkled her brow. She had missed some key detail along the way. “Then who was the man with one shoe and a torn shirt who left this morning?”
“My Uber driver from last night,” Gloria said, her tone suggesting that Leah needed to do a better job of tracking with her stories. “Oh, that reminds me, I meant to give him five stars.” Gloria reached for her purse and dug around until she finally found her phone. “So, the auditions were just so-so? The cattle call produced less than a Class-A herd, so to speak? More hamburger than prime rib?”
Leah shook her head. “Oh no, on the contrary, we saw some terrific people. For most of the parts. Sadly, we have two parts for older guys—the butlers, Lane and Merriman—and no one came in to read for those roles.”
“So you’ll have to see if you can pull them from the Reverend Passable rejects?”
“Reverend Chasuble.”
“Whatever.” Gloria had located her phone and opened the app, tapping and swiping quickly before tossing the phone back into the recesses of her bag. “Five stars and a twenty-percent tip. I don’t know how I ever got the reputation of being a cheap date.”
“Yes, that is a puzzle,” Leah said. She poked at her pasta to see if there were any small bits of chicken remaining. There appeared to be one final piece, with just the perfect portion of pesto attached. “And, yes, we’ll have to find our butlers among the Reverend rejects. But I hate to do that, because I know what it feels like to come in and read for one part and then be asked to basically be a spear carrier.”
