Rejection Junction What's Your Function
It's not a song by Schoolhouse Rock, but it should be.
Last weekend I had a callback audition for what I thought was the role of a lifetime: Annie Wilkes in Misery for a summer theater series. In preparation I read through the entire script, memorized my sides, and hired an audition coach to review everything before I showed up. I was so ready and I could taste the part.
The day of the callback arrived. I drove two hours to the audition—ignoring logic and convincing myself that commuting four hours roundtrip for rehearsals and shows wouldn’t be that bad. I parked, took a deep breath, and walked in.
The second I enter the space I realize it is all wrong. I’m not in a theater but a building that looks haphazardly pulled together, with open wiring in the roof and paint cans all over.I heard the same lines I had memorized by an older woman who was a mere 20 feet from me IN THE MIDDLE OF HER AUDITION. What the fuck?
A surly-looking man sitting in the corner pointed to a chair, which I put my stuff on. I turned away from the woman in the middle of her audition and tried to close my eyes and meditate, not focusing on her words. Nevertheless, her words got inside of me and I started to judge. She is overacting, no don’t judge, she’s doing it all wrong, no, do it my way, my own interpretation. But she is so bad! No, don’t judge.
The three directors seated at a table across from her kept telling her she was great. I waited, and waited, and waited. She walked out of the room after her audition and one of the directors started saying that she was the one. Another director interrupted and said they still had to see me.
I came onstage, which wasn’t really a stage, shook hands with my reader, and launched into the first scene. A second after it ended: “thank you very much,” one of the directors said. “We’ll let you know sometime next week.”
I had prepared a second scene but I guess they didn’t want to see it. I thanked them and headed out with a smile on my face.
What did I do wrong? Well, I have critiqued my performance to identify ways to improve, but overall what I did wrong was nothing. I just wasn’t what they were looking for or they had already picked who they wanted or whatever whatever.
Rejection is a huge part of this business, even bigger I feel than the writing industry, but I’ve probably blocked out my days as a young cub reporter in New York City. Putting yourself out there day in and day out is not easy, and it requires a huge mental lift to stay determined and positive.
For me it helps to always keep moving, learn from mistakes but don’t get stuck in them. In the meantime, I’m in two productions on Chicago theaters and I am shooting a role in a student film at the end of the week. Yeah it took hundreds of rejections to get those things, but I’m not giving up. And maybe that’s the whole point, rejection makes me show up better.