Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A change of hope

The post title isn't about Obama's inauguration, it's regarding my audition for Beauty and the Beast: The cast list was published, and I'm not on it. I didn't even get a callback. So now I'm pinning my hopes on the more long-shot possibility of a role in China: The Whole Enchilada.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Audition Season!

Got one tonight, for Beauty and the Beast, with HITS Theatre. The performances will be at Miller Outdoor Theater in April. And it pays! So here's hoping.

More of a stretch, but I'm going to give it a shot, is for Theater Lab Houston's production of China: The Whole Enchilada, which is a three-man show, and also pays. That audition is next Sunday.

Also coming up, Fort Bend Theatre will be producing Annie Get Your Gun. I don't really think there's a role for me in that one. That is, the only one that gets much singing time is Frank Butler, and I don't see myself as the leading man/wild west show star.

The schedules overlap, so in the unlikely event that I was cast in more than one, I'd have to choose. I have to say that I tend to favor the one that spells "theater" in the American way. But I never know where I'm going to end up.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

A Parable

Once upon a time, there was a middle-aged couple who got married. She was kind of a selfish b*tch, and he was a supremacist, given to erratic fits of rage. Each had numerous children from earlier marriages.

As you might expect, the marriage did not last long. After the divorce, her standard of living improved, because she'd had a better job, and now she didn't have to support him anymore. He was enraged about that. The property was divided in two; she built a house on her half, as she saw fit. He never built a house, because he thought he should have gotten the whole property. He was enraged about that.

Every now and then, he would pack up all his children and go to her place and throw rocks. She wasn't often available for him (and his kids) to throw rocks at, so they usually threw at her children, who were playing in the yard. She didn't like that a bit.

So she made his life a living hell. Since he never built a house, all his mail came to her, and sometimes she would just hold onto it, rather than giving it to him. Since she had a job and he didn't, she would sometimes hold onto his child support for a long time. "Stop throwing rocks at me and my kids," she would admonish him, "and maybe we can treat each other like civilized adults."

One day, things came to a head. Literally: one of the rocks he threw hit one of her kids in the head. She'd had enough. She came out of the house with a baseball bat and set about him. She yelled at his kids to get out of the way, but the fact is that each of the kids held a bunch of rocks for their dad, and he kept running from kid to kid to get more rocks to throw. So as she swung at him, she'd sometimes hit a kid.

"Stop hitting my kids!" he screamed.
"Send your kids someplace safe," she countered, "and we'll finish this without them."
"I can't fight without my kids," he growled.
"Then give up."
"Never!"

So the battle raged...