To Be or Not To Be?

Funny.  After posting yesterday about how nothing important happens, something important happens.  And again, important is a relative term.

I'd seen posters all around campus advertising for an open casting call for campus videos and decided to check it out.  I've done theater for years and had a lot of fun so thought "why not?!"  I didn't even have to prepare a monologue or anything, just show up and give it a shot.  I figured it didn't really matter what happened.  If I got a part in something it would be really fun, and if I didn't, I wouldn't be any worse off then when I started.  

Let's just say the whole experience really made me miss the stage.  I couldn't believe it!!  I haven't done an actual show in over a year and a half and I honestly just miss getting on stage with my friends and having fun.  

Pacing in the lobby before an audition.  Anxiously waiting the posting of a cast list.  Reading the script for the first time and laughing 'till my abs hurt.  Having a million and one inside jokes with other cast and crew.  Doing a scene over and over and over and over because it's supposed to be serious and I can't stop laughing.  Crazy directors.  Crazy stage managers.  Heavy costumes under hot lights.  More makeup in one night than I wear in a week.  Butterflies in my stomach before taking those first few steps.  Getting to be someone else for a few minutes.  Frantically looking for a prop or anything that resembles it to take with me.  Frantically waiting for someone to appear, and if they don't, frantically thinking up fake lines so the audience doesn't know.  Saying a line so many times, the once funny joke is hardly funny to me anymore.  Presenting our hard work to an audience the first night and hearing them laugh at that joke until their abs hurt, and remembering why I love the stage.  Thunderous applause.  Closed curtains.  Tearing a set to smithereens and watching the only evidence of my past three months disappear.  I miss it all.  

They said they'd give me a call sometime if they needed me.  It might be in two weeks, it could be next semester.  Whatever happens is okay with me although I can't imagine how much fun it would be to be a part of something again.  Granted, film is nothing like the stage so it would be a challenge for me.  But that 1 minute audition reminded me of something I once loved to do and something that I will forever be grateful to have had in my life.  To be involved with anything remotely similar would be an amazing experience.