The youngest has her first audition today. She called me last night, all aflutter, worried about the jitters and stage fright. She asked me what I did in those situations, and I was at a loss because I’ve never felt them. I thought of friends who had, and gave her their tiny tricks to get her through what she sees as a momentous occasion. She tells me she needs me because I did theater and I am the one that knows, and I do. Oh darling, I do.
Someday, in my memoir, I intend to write about my experiences in theater. I don’t write about it much, aside from a few poems from the time that were usually used to express my frustrations. Don’t get me wrong, it was by far one of the greatest periods of my life, but after 10 years things kind of became stagnant, and I found that I had to move on in order to achieve other goals. But, for a decade, I did work in professional theater. Not just high school plays, and not even the community sort, but the Buffalo professional theater scene, where I was a director, actress, and stage manager, the latter of which took up most of my years. However, I started with acting, and I do remember my first audition in 7th grade.
Our school had just gone on a field trip to see Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat at a local college, and we had learned that our class would be performing a slightly more religious and childsized version called The Dreamer. This was the first time I sang solo, and when I was given a non-singing part as the Pharaoh, I realize that my musical talent was less God given than taketh away. However, the Pharaoh was a decent role and I was very excited, and I did a great job. The following year I was cast in the Christmas play as a news reporter, again doing a great job.
High school was different. I remember the audition I went on for my first high school production, at the time we were supposed to be doing Grease, although I guess they did not get the rights to the play and it ended up being Little Shop of Horrors. Anyway you cut it, I didn’t get it. Because I can’t sing. That is when I realized that drama was my option- that was my wheelhouse.
In 11th grade, I wrote and directed my first play for my school at their One-Act Play Festival. It was around that time I had joined a theater group at the former Buffalo Ensemble Theater which was housed in the former New Phoenix Theater downtown. I was asked by the groups administrator to take on the mantle of director for our first production, and that is when the world cracked open for me. I did five or six shows with that group, one year performing my favorite role as Ms Henrietta Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. I relished my ability to create this character- the fact that it was originally written for a man meant nothing to me, and I am confident that I rocked that role beyond expectations. The praise I received afterwards was unlike anything I had received before, or really would again until I started writing in earnest. Then when I was 20, I wrote, directed, and acted in a production at New Phoenix. It was the pinnacle of my personal theatrical achievements.
When my theater group disbanded, I found another company to work with and was put into a stage managerial role eventually. This was new to me, but I found that I liked it just as much as directing, because at the end of the day I was the one with the power. Oh, you thought that was the actors? Actors are just human beings standing on stage in the dark trying to emote without a stage manager.
After a couple of gigs with that company, the man who ran New Phoenix contacted me because he needed a stage manager. I happily took up the position, and while the show never came to fruition, I did meet someone that I formed a working friendship with, and proceeded to work with him for 4 years on numerous productions. At the end of the 4th year, I began to notice things that I had perhaps deliberately disregarded in the past, and slights began to build. Eventually, one day, a straw fell that broke this camel’s back, and I walked the fuck out. I have never regretted leaving. I only regret any detriment that fell to the cast upon my departure, but from what I understood the show was able to proceed. I remember calling a friend, a crew guy who passed a few years back, and asking him if he could come in and run light and sound for me. I told him I quit. I didn’t have to tell him anything else- he said he understood and would be there, and he was. I remember the director begging me to come back, swearing that I would not have to deal with the problems I had brought to everyone’s attention. I couldn’t do it. I would have, for him, for the cast, for my crew, but I was spent. Everything I had left to give had been taken, and my voice was never heard anymore. You simply cannot work any job in those conditions.
My theatrical career ended with the help of the late great Tilke Hill, who had me help out on a show she was directing. As I would sit in rehearsals, I could feel my love for theater draining, and I realized I was not ready to do this anymore. I had loved the theater for so long and if working in it made me lose that love, then I had to get out.
Do I miss it? You bet your ass. Oh, how I wish I could go do a show! I’m not saying I’ll never do it again, because if the right person came to me with right project, I would be in that theater immediately. There are people I would work with again in a heartbeat, all they would need to do is ask.
I’m thinking about all this, of course, because of K’s audition. I am thinking of this because this one little afternoon couldn’t mean more to her than she even realizes. I would not be surprised at all to find one of my kiddos get bit by the bug the way I did when I was 7 years old and sat in the balcony of the Kavinoky Theater and watched a production of Noises Off that I probably should not have even been allowed to watch. She is so nervously excited right now, and I wish I could be there with her to root her on, but I will stay here and I will keep my fingers crossed and I will pray to the theater gods that my girl gets a part. Because even though my career in theater ended painfully, it truly was a wonderful decade. I learned skills, I met people, and some days, I got to feel like God creating the universe. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Ham 'N Eggs- by Brigid Hannon 