Making a "scene"

Yesterday morning, I had an audition up in Seattle for an "interactive multimedia thing" (as The Agent called it) and as I stood out in the hallway, the elevator opened and a small group of women exited and walked passed me. Suddenly one of them stopped and turned to face me. She smiled and greeted me by name before stating how lovely it was to see me again and walked off.

It took me about half a second to register that she was the Artistic Director of one of the Big Theatres up in Seattle. Holy Crap! She knew me by name at a glance!

And I haven’t worked for her. Yet.

What I have done is send out a ridiculous amount of headshots and show promotions and I can only guess that THAT is the reason she recognizes my face. This tells me two things that I really needed to know: that Launch is starting to work AND that I do, in fact, look like my headshot. Both are excellent news.

THEN I ran into a local musician/actor/musical director that I HAVE had the great fortune of working with recently. Kisses and hugs later, we parted ways and swore we would see each other’s projects (which we probably won’t be able to but we will MEAN to).

When my name was called, I was delighted to discover that the person running auditions was my favorite local casting director – a very nice lady with a wicked sense of humor. She hugged me and we chatted a bit before I read my pieces. My audition was not the BEST it could have been but it was certainly one of the most fun auditions I have had in a long while.

As I was leaving the room, I ran into one of my favorite Seattle theatre people in the hallway. I apologized for missing his show and he gave me crap about it – a typical conversation between theatre types, it seems.

I left that experience feeling more a part of the local theatre crowd than I have since moving here.

Back in Pittsburgh at any audition or theatre event I would go to, inevitably I would run into a hand full of people I knew. That was the result of the 15 years I spent there auditioning, directing and producing. I felt very much a part of the theatre scene there and have very fond memories of it.

I look forward to becoming even more a part of the “scene” here.