REAL ART TRAVELS
My Audition in San Francisco

For part one of this three part series, click here.

San Francisco was disappointing. Not the city itself, mind you, although I was so absorbed by my impending audition for the California Institute of the Arts graduate acting program, that I kind of walked around the city in a daze for much of the time I was there—I did note, however, that San Francisco is quite beautiful, and that the Castro is not any more gay than Houston’s Montrose or New Orleans’ French Quarter or New York’s Greenwich Village. No, I was disappointed by my audition.

It was at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel which is a rather ritzy joint, with bellhops dressed in sixteenth century English regalia. I arrived a half hour before the auditions began, and filled out some paperwork—I was so nervous that I had forgotten the name of one of the characters that I play in my two monologues; I even called my parents long-distance to get them to do a Google search which helped not one bit. Anyway, I completed my forms to the best of my ability, and then went into an orientation with about 20 or 30 other aspiring actors, both undergraduate and graduate, to get the goods on the school.

I learned some interesting stuff. CalArts has spent the last decade or so raiding elite acting faculties across the country, trying to put together an intense and elite staff. Two faculty members were there: one had taught voice and diction at the prestigious Julliard School and the other had been an acting teacher at both Yale and New York University. I knew CalArts was great, but I didn’t know until then just how great it probably is, at least in terms of faculty pedigree. I also found out that they, as a training program, are extraordinarily interested in infiltrating the industry. That is, to paraphrase their words, the old theory, that it was enough to simply train great actors and then unleash them on Hollywood and Broadway, no longer works. In their view, it is now necessary to also create networks within the industry: CalArts’ acting faculty continues to work and maintain strong contacts within both the film and professional theater industries—ideally, this means that CalArts MFAs have a pipeline into acting professionally that MFAs from other schools don’t have.

“Cool,” I thought. “I hope I get in.”

Then we were sent out into a lobby area and we waited until we were called in to do our thing. I guess I waited for a couple of hours or so until it was my turn. I ran through my monologues in my head, tried to relax, and paced. A lot. There were numerous other actors standing around waiting, too, but I didn’t really talk that much—I was doing a pretty good job of maintaining my focus.

Finally, they called me in.

The woman said, “hello.”

“Hi,” I said back.

“So, you’re Ron,” the man said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“How are you today?” he asked.

“Fine. A bit nervous, actually.”

The man kind of dropped his head and touched his face. “Just be sure to go slowly,” he sighed. Lots of actors get nervous in these situations which makes them rocket through their performances—I imagine seeing so many actors play their monologues at break-neck speed gets to be frustrating. Fortunately for me, I had worked on my monologues last fall with a top notch acting professor who had taught me at the University of Texas years ago: he told me that I was going too slowly. Rate of delivery became a big aspect of my rehearsal process after that, so I wasn’t worried about going too quickly.

“You graduated from UT in…1991?” the man asked while looking at my paperwork.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And you’re doing…uh…Love’s Labour’s Lost...and...The Author’s Voice?”

“That’s correct.”

And that was the extent of the interview I was expecting to have. When he told me to go ahead and run my monologues, I assumed they would ask me more questions when I was done, giving me the chance to dazzle them with my sparkling personality.

So I showed them my chops. I think I was a bit stiff on my Shakespeare piece, but it was a solid performance. However, I really managed to groove into my contemporary piece, not my absolute best work, but pretty damned good.

“Okay...good,” the man said flatly, “well, that’s all, Ron, thanks.”

That was just about it. My inability to read their reaction coupled with the lack of interview left me feeling like I had blown it somehow. I started to say goodbye when the woman asked me if I had any questions. Of course, my mind was a total blank at this point: my buddy, Lex, a professional actor in New York, later said of this, “Yeah, I’ve got a question for you. DO I GET IN?!?” Heh. Indeed. All I could think of to say was that I had scrutinized their website, and that their orientation was good. Then I left.

I honestly can’t remember the next few hours after that. I was sure that they hated me. I think I watched TV in my hotel room for the rest of the afternoon. That night, my wife and I spent a couple of hours in a residential area, shivering, trying to find the Castro neighborhood—our cab driver had dropped us off in the wrong part of town. When we finally got there, we were too cold and tired to really enjoy ourselves, and I was further disappointed to not see any leather men in chaps wandering around. We went back to our room.

I left San Francisco feeling very let down. Months of preparation, stress, and anxiety had seemingly been for naught. Big drag.

Of course, that was weeks ago. Hindsight has made me feel better about my audition—my work was good, and it was probably intentional that I couldn’t read my auditors. Poker faces, no doubt, come in handy in such situations. And, hey, in the wide world of acting, anybody’s got a shot. As my younger brother later told me, “You can’t win the lottery if you don’t got a ticket.”

I still haven’t heard anything. They say that the longer it takes for these things, the better...

Coming soon: Baton Rouge.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$