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- Actor at Bad Audition!
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- Actor at *Worse* Audition!
Ohmigod, this is so bad it’s good. This is so frickin’ ridiculous and out-to-lunch it’s fabulous!!!
Auditions. The best of them…are a rarity. Sad but true. Then there are the ubiquitous horrid auditions. The one I went to today was one of those, and it was HILARIOUSLY BAD!!!!
Starting with “everyone should meet at Starbucks”, and giving an address, and then changing the location and telling…no one!
Moving on to, “Come over to this other Starbucks and sign up for your audition”…and wait…and wait…and wait, while we collect even more people from Starbucks locations that we erroneously gave to one portion of you.
Moving on to instructions to talk about EDD (the good ol’ unemployment agency that saves my bacon every few weeks with a serviceable check) during our audition. What? One person thought we were supposed to be reading a script of someone else’s experience with EDD. Me, I didn’t know what was going on. I was just there to audition, whatever they wanted! But really, what do we think of EDD? Wouldn’t that have been a good thing to tell us ahead of time?
Here comes the really, really good part:
We’re sitting in front of a Starbucks, about 10 or 12 of us. The music is playing outside, as it always does at any outdoor Starbucks establishment. Down the little walkway in front of Starbucks, about 20-30 feet away at the corner of the cement building, is a woman sitting in a folding chair, with a tripod and camera, filming the auditions. Each audition is taking 5-10 minutes. Too long for some, who have come from as far away as Sacramento (we’re talking over an hour each way) and need to get back to their lives. More people are showing up. It’s a cluster-f***! The young women in charge are overwhelmed and don’t know what to say to us. We’re ticked and too stupid to leave. Some of us. Some do trickle away over the next hour and 15. Smart people!
So, we’re all sitting there, some of us chatting in conversational tones, some of us just sitting and waiting, when we hear a voice call out words that no one in their right minds would ever, ever utter in front of a freakin’ Starbucks! That are only ever uttered when one is working. Employed. Hired as an actor in some capacity for film work. But never anywhere else! And especially not in front of a freakin’ Starbucks!!!!!
“Quiet on the set!”
Ohmigod! “Quiet on the set!”???? Did I hear that right? “Quiet on the set????” This is Starbucks you silly cow!
Every single actor there looked up and locked eyes. Every expression was identical.
W T F?????
First there was annoyance, even anger! But the second time she called out, “Quiet on the set!” and one of the young women actually shushed us – in front of Starbucks (sorry, but it’s just so NUTS, I can’t get over it!) – I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it, and frankly, didn’t even want to! I started laughing. And every time she called it, I had to laugh.
One young guy there had to get back to San Jose – a 30-40 minute drive each way, depending on traffic – and I looked at him and drily said, “Ahhh, the glamorous lives we lead.” And he smiled at me, the gorgeous young thing, and said, “Game on!“
Exactly.
The audition itself? The next bit of nonsense came when there were people trying to get in sooner so they could leave. It was a mess. For every kind person that said they’d let someone in front of them, everyone behind them was held up that much longer. Lunacy. I finally fought my way to the front – they had skipped over me, those well-organized little darlings – and went to “film” with Miss “DeMille” (Quiet on the set!!!!!).
“Say your name, where you’re from, and tell us what you think of EDD.”
They are, it turns out, going to use these snippets in some TV show. No wonder we were supposedly “on set” in some drug-induced ideology of theirs.
“Hi,” I say to the camera, “My name is Lori Kirstein and I’m from Hayward.” I take a moment – a “beat”, it’s called, to give a little space to separate out the slate (my name and city) from the information – and I said, “EDD -” and Miss I’m-The-Directeur called, “CUT!” I stuttered to a stop. “What?” I said. And she looked up at me and said, “I need a little less space between your name … and … y’know…” She’s suddenly distracted by the fascination of having her cell phone in her hand.
“No.” This was ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. “I don’t know. Between my name and what?” (The city? My thoughts about EDD? How much of a @#@#$%^ I think you and your whole ridiculous posse are?)
“Between your name and what you think of EDD! Just a liiiittle less space. Okay?” twinkle, twinkle. ”Okay,” and she shoots an “Action!” index finger in my direction, and I say to the camera, “Hi my name is Lori Kirstein and I’m from Hayward EDD saves my butt with checks every now and again I’ve never been unemployed before and EDD saves my butt that’s all i can think of to say about EDD.”
She looks at me, all shiny-faced and shiny-eyed. “Ooh!” she trills, “I love one-takes!”
Oh. My. God.
