Star Trek

I've had two auditions since coming home three months ago. The first was right after Thanksgiving. It was for the understudy in an off-Broadway, one-woman show; the writing was smart, funny, challenging, juicy. It also happened to be the kind of character I can really relate well to.

I went to the audition and had a great time: didn't have any regrets about what I "should" have done in that audition room; just had a lot of fun with it. I didn't get the part, but one of the casting directors told me later that I did a really great job. All in all it was a damn positive experience.

My second audition was tonight; about 30 minutes ago, in fact.
I had missed the first audition because of my mom's health scare, and the people were gracious enough to reschedule it during call-backs.

The project was a set of shows showcasing the writing of a group of graduate playwrights.
During the audition, the actors were given sides (pages/scenes from the script that they want you to read from) and we were paired up to do the scenes together in the audition room.

The sides I was given were written by one of the playwrights whom I actually know. I really like her work, so was glad to be working with her familiar style (remember that word "style". We'll come back to it later).

The other actress and I had a scene which, I'm assuming, takes place in a restaurant or at a party, where Woman #1 sees a guy she used to date, flips out, and Woman #2 tries to placate her.

We did the scene one time, then were asked to flip the roles around so that we each got to read each part once (since we were both women playing Women, and the people there didn't give us any direction about which Woman we were each supposed to play).

Afterwards, the moderator (playwright? director? producer?) who was one of 5 poker-faced auditionees watching us, told us he was going to "ask us to try the scenes in a couple of different styles. They may not seem to fit with the dialogue, but we just want to see what your range is."
At first I thought we were supposed to come up with our own styles, completely off-the-cuff.
I breathed a bit easier when he consulted his binder for his notes.

I started wondering if one style would be something like film noir, or better yet, spaghetti western! Something I could sink my teeth into!

The first was a professor-student relationship in the professor's office. Awkward, yes, considering the dialogue didn't give much room for a scholarly interpretation. But we gave it a whirl and hoped for the best.
When we were done, we were told that the next style would be...

Star Trek.


I waited for the punchline, only to see that they were completely serious. In a very un-funny way.

I was forced to do the scene, which gave absolutely no room for any type of outer-galactic fun, as a very lame William Shatner. Complete with futuristic wooshing doors.

Is this acting, you ask?

Not on this planet. And I left feeling like an asshole whose time was completely wasted. Not only that, but the ridiculous part of me felt bad for LETTING THEM DOWN by not doing a better Start Trek.

Welcome to the life of an actor.