I wanted to be an actress. Decades earlier I’d been a dancer, and had developed a love of the stage. Too old, now, to dance, I decided to try acting. Problem was, I knew nothing about it. Singing and dancing in a musical looked fun and easy. I figured I’d audition to be in the chorus. How hard could it be?
So, I asked a friend to suggest an audition piece. He knew I knew next to nothing, besides having had some music instruction in my youth, and he chose a very easy piece for me to sing. I thought, of course, that I knew more than he did (I was still young, all of a dozen years ago) and chose something else. A bossa nova. I worked on it at home, singing in the hallway. I printed out some sheet music that I kinda sorta knew was in my kinda sorta key. I thought had it down.
Until I was waiting with the other hopefuls, while the person whose turn it was for a “private” (everyone could hear) audition in the studio right next door was singing their hearts out. They all sounded good. Really good. I started to sweat.
It was my turn.
I could barely breathe as I stood before the director, assistant director, music coach, stage manager and music director, this last seated at a piano. I handed him the sheet music. He asked me a question I could not answer, then he started to play.
The only sound that came out of my mouth was a raspy peep. Maybe two. The pianist stopped playing. Someone said “Thank you.” I left that room and walked sheepishly back into the room where the others awaited their turns. I knew they’d heard everything. Or rather nothing.
It was time for the dance part of the audition, which I could do, or so I thought, as well as any of the others, even though I had a couple of decades on the oldest of the rest of them. I was probably wrong about how well I did.
The next morning I got the call. They wouldn’t be needing me.
I’ve gone on to take nearly ten years of voice lessons, and acting lessons. I’ve had some audition coaching. Despite all this preparation, my auditions have all been exercises in wiping egg off my face.
This is my response to 
The image is of me as Richard's mother, in Shakespeare's Richard III, and was taken by the director, Diana Green. I do manage to get cast in plays, but have yet to be cast in a musical. There's always the next time!
