Grad School Audition, Or, Why I Didn't Get Much Sleep the Last Couple of Days

I had an audition for an MFA program for acting this morning. In case you don't know, an MFA is much like an MA except recepients of this degree tend to have slightly looser wrists.

Jokes in poor taste aside, the program that I'd sell at least one kidney to get into is small, and, due to the fact that it is run in conjunction with a regional theatre that every couple of years sends shows to Broadway, I suspect that this program would even make a happy man out of perennial sour-puss Richard Milhouse Nixon.

The audition itself went well. I had to prepare a couple of monologues, which wasn't a huge deal, and I think I played them pretty well. They said that they'd let me know in a couple of weeks, which is, of course, theatre-speak for "Your acting just threw up in my mouth a little bit," or, occasionally, "We'll let you know in a couple of weeks."

However, what did bring on a bout of existential angst was the few minutes I spent in a room with another auditioner prior to both of our auditions. I had been told to wait in a specified room, and upon my entrance, I noticed a woman in there, who was probably in a similar age range as myself. We said hello, and then went back to our respective personal bubbles.

Or at least I did. The woman got up and started to stretch, which I found to be a reasonable use of time. Stretching is a good way to loosen up so that you're at your best for all types of stressful circumstances, such as athletics or running from the law. While she stretched, I went back to going over the words of my monologues, hoping that I wouldn't have some kind of bizarre black out, and look like a goober in my audition. However, in her stretching, I noticed that she had bent over at the waist, which I just assumed meant that she had had some good dance training, because she was obviously very flexible, but before I could think any more about it, the woman did a somersault in the middle of the room.

As you may have guessed, I wasn't quite sure what to do with this, and this is where the angst enters this narrative. All of a sudden, I began second guessing myself. Should I be doing somersaults? Am I a bad actor because I do not do somersaults before auditions? Would I be a better actor if I did somersaults in rooms that have people that I've never met while wearing fairly nice clothes? Etc.

This is a definite point to ponder. I wonder if my gym offers tumbling classes. Perhaps that's what I'm missing.