"My love is vengeance... that's never free"
Wednesday, I went up to the Hair Cuttery to get my haircut. My stylist's name was Hector... and he was fabulous. I've got a very specific way I want it cut now-a-days... but I always ask whoever's doing it how it looks, and what they think. I mean, they look at other people's hair all day, they have to have SOME opinion on what looks good and what doesn't. The bad news is that the cut cost me probably about $4 more than Supercuts (cuz I had coupons!)... but can you put a price on good hair? (Hint: Yes. Very easily)
I then did a whole bunch of miscellaneous errands... hoping that it would keep my mind off the nervous feeling I had for at least a week about my audition. And I WAS able to keep my mind occupied, but the time for the audition came soon enough. One of the errands I ran Wednesday morning was to find the Bailiwick Theatre (because I had never been up there before); so I already knew exactly where I was going when the time came for the audition. When I got up to the Bailiwick, I was met in the lobby by the two other people who were auditioning during my time slot: Colleen and Julie. Colleen just finished school at Northern Illinois in theatre ("that's a MAC school" I said, "What?" she responded, "MAC... the Midwestern? um...", "Oh, is that a sports thing?", "Ah... yeah.", "Oh, okay"); and Julie was a 40-something stand-up comedian who does some scripted work on the side. Her audition piece was actually some stand-up... not great, but she was a really really nice person, so I laughed anyway. Then she sang something and sat down. Then I went. And I did my monologue from The Actor's Nightmare... and I had the undivided attention of both the other actors auditioning, and the two people who were auditioning us didn't seem to be paying attention. I couldn't get eye contact. So I was a little thrown off by that, but I kept doing it... and I lost interest in what I was doing about half-way through. Thoughts like "you shouldn't have done this one" and "why aren't they paying attention" started to flood my head... and I actually finished the monologue a paragraph early because I was done with it. Jimmy Binns, the writer, then asked me to do the monologue again, but as Al Pacino. "Al Pacino?" I asked; "Yeah, you know how he fills up the space?" he said. And I thought to myself, "No... I really I no idea what you're talking about." So then I started frantically trying to remember Al Pacino movies I've seen... Heat? that sucked... Godfather? that character is NOTHING like George Spelvin... and that's all I had time for because I had to go. So I started it again... pretty much doing the same exact thing. And Binns stopped me about five words into it and said "No no no... he is DYING out there. Play it like he's going to die." That made more sense... but it just seemed like he wanted me to play it "bigger" than I thought it should be played. We're not talking about a classically trained actor here, George Spelvin is an accountant... he's going to act like a normal person, not some ACTOR who's ACTING... look at me, I'm acting! No... he's just a normal dude... which is why I wanted to do this monologue. I play normal dude very well, I think. But I finished my monologue and Binns had me sit down. He didn't even have me sing. Then Colleen went, did her monologue, sang, and sat down. Only at that time did Binns remember I was supposed to sing, too. And, after I finished singing, we were supposed to do some improv... but we didn't. I think that's probably a really bad sign. He knew he didn't like any of us, so he didn't need to see any more.
The good news is that I went to Chipotle after the audition. Chipotle is easily my favorite "fast food" restaurant... so I went out to treat myself with a million dollar burrito (not really a million dollars, but close).

Thursday morning, Miss Heatherman Jackson pointed me to a news story here. Looks like an actor got shot in New York, and they blame her for it happening. Things like "she had stage combat training" and "confronted the mugger" are used in the article to get the writer's narrow-minded viewpoint across. Honestly, living in fear is no way to live. I am NOT going to let my fear of something like that happening control me... and I'm not going to let someone with a gun scare me into doing whatever they want. I think where she went to far is that she, apparently, shoved the person with the gun. That's the no-no, to me. Not confronting the robber. In the article, an "expert" says that confronting the mugger is the worst thing you could possibly do. And I totally disagree. I think living in fear is the worst thing you can do... and, if the mugger decides it's worth taking my life to get $4 and a couple credit cards, then so be it. I would rather not live than have to fear going outside. But I guess that's just me.

Later that night I had my Conservatory class. I was not looking forward to class, as my professional esteem has been hitting all time lows thanks to the blunt deflation that is Gellman's teaching style. I really didn't want to go... but hearing from Colleen at the audition (who is also in the Conservatory's level 1 [Tuesdays]) really helped me. She also hates her class, but she has a completely different instructor. For some reason, hearing that she hated her class too gave me hope. So I was willing to give this class another try. And it was different. First of all, Gellman started off class by saying that this class is the most difficult one that he ever teaches. Not because it's difficult per se, but because he himself finds it difficult. He opened up to us... he even told us a story about how he had a terrible time at the dentist. It was interesting... and nice... and what felt like the first step. We then went over the three rules of dialogue: Make statements; talk about the present; and "yes, and..." everything. In addition, he gave us a couple new rules about not telling other people what to do; not dictating what you're doing; and focusing on the relationship at all times. We then did a few 60 second scenes with some strict side-coaching... an intense exercise which I don't think any of us could have handled for more than the 60 seconds. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't "bad"... it was just very intense.
After class, one of our classmates, Matt, was going to be in a show up at Improv Olympic... and, surprisingly, our class just instinctively said to ourselves "why wouldn't we go?" So a group of about a dozen of us went up to IO to see his show. On the way up there, I ran into Brian on the El. Brian, the former manager of Coldstone Brian... I hadn't seen him since right after I got fired... and it was great to see him again. He and his boyfriend apparently became life partners (I'm trying very hard to figure out how to say this right... Brian just held up his hand and showed me his ring and I knew what happened... but I can't do that. I could have told you that that's what he did... and I did that. What the hell just happened to this narrative?). Anyway, he was very civily unioned... and it was great to hear that he's doing so well (although not working anymore... odd how Coldstone does that to you).
Then we got to IO just in time... Matt's show was good but not great. And he may have broken a few of the improv rules we just went over in class... but the whole class had fun being together. Quiet a breakthrough for this class of people stuck together for a year and a half.
Which reminds me, I've been putting off emailing Norm Holly, the head of the Conservatory program, for at least a week. I need to email him because the Conservatory Level 2 audition that I have to do to continue with the program is May 14th, the first Saturday of my trip to England. My worry is that I'm going to have to wait to get into Level 2, effectively having my entire class move on without me. This wouldn't be good... as we just are getting to know each other have having some chemistry as a class. I've got no chance... stupid trip!

I figured something out tonight. As I was walking back from the Red Line, I found myself thinking "Oh man, what a great class tonight. I can't wait to go back to Albion and teach them how to do it." And then I had to stop myself. I'm not going back to Albion to teach improv... I don't know if that would even be a possibility. Regardless, I realized that I want two things out of my life: I want to educate and I want to entertain. That's been staring me in the face for years... and I've sort of known it for a while... but it actually finally hit me tonight. So, there you go kids. From now on, whenever you ask me what I'm doing with myself, I'm going to say that I'm trying to attain one of my two goals--education or entertainment.