Without being goaded much (twist my arm why don’t you), I auditioned for the 50th
production of Ketchikan’s Original Musical: Fish Pirate’s Daughter.

At first, I heard it was very cheesy and that I shouldn’t do it. I realized that I was misinformed and that the show is actually a lot of fun.

But most importantly: Why would I pass up the opportunity to be in a play again? All my evenings are open. I’m usually done with work by 2pm. I have dreamed about being back on the stage for a long time, so much so that I almost overlooked this beaming opportunity entirely.

The show plays every July and this year is the 50th production!

My boss (Dock Commander Suzanne) helps direct it with her husband Joe and the Uber Director Elizabeth, who reminds me of most female directors: overweight, overexpressive and a wearer of many hats. (No offense theatre directors, this has just been my experience). She wears thick-lensed glasses with straight, straight hair and a clip to one side holding it back from her eyes. She wears a skirt, ergonomic shoes and a flowy long-sleeve top with asymmetrical hems.

We (Claire, Jazmin and I) enter the building where the audition is and immediately I feel both like “I’m on display” and “No you’re not don’t blow this out of proportion you are not the center of the universe” simultaneously, and this tug and pull keeps me in an adrenal topspin until the audition ends.

We all gather in the room (mostly women but there are a few dudes) and we fill out the form. Name, address, the parts we want, how we are willing to contribute with the production process, and our previous experience in acting.
I decide not to list all my prior experience but make sure to say “BA in Theatre Arts”! because that is important to say. I list the notable roles from college. It’s weird because my experience has all coagulated in some rumpled timeline that used to lie straight in my mind like a tightrope I could easily trace back to the start. Now it’s like a piece of used floss shoved into a pocket. It’s all in there, but dates, times, even personal significance have started to run like mascara in the rain. Someday my precious memories, the main ingredient of my identity, will be in a compost heap of memory.

But for now, I still have very specific memories of the shows I did in school and after. It takes a bit longer to sort them all out, but they are still recognizable.

After I finish filling out the form, I make sure to chat it up with my boss and her husband. I want the director to notice that I am a friend of her co-directors. I also want the other auditionees to notice the same (muahahahaha- I’m basically Ursula in The Little Mermaid).

I feast my eyes on the scripts Elizabeth hands out and I immediately think of as many ideas as I can for how to read the parts. I hardly understand the plot description, but I know enough to know that I just need to make bold choices and make an impression quickly.

A few scenes are read and I immediately stack myself against the competition. One lady in particular has a very good grasp of the script and makes creative choices. I like her style and decide that she is someone I should keep my eyes on. She is in her 40s so I am not as stuck on her, because we may be considered for different parts, but really: what do I know? I don’t even know the show. Otherwise, there is one guy, Niles, who is apparently Mr. Actor. He is wearing a plaid shiryou t and a golfer cap. I also make a note of him as someone I want to impress or at least, match in talent, but I go about my mental preparation as he is not the competition.

Next we are called up and I give this scene everything I’ve got. I read with a nice lady named Tina who doesn’t have a strong sense of comedic timing but is doing fine. I can hear laughter in the background but it’s impossible to know how much you are getting compared to the other folks. It’s something that it’s hard not to wonder, honestly, even though it seems pretty shallow. You’ve made your creative choices, chosen in the moment which choice is the strongest and let ‘er rip, though you don’t know the crowd and what they might find funny. Do Alaskans laugh at the same jokes as the lower 48? How should I know?

After you finish the reading, you sit and act humble like you aren’t totally absorbed with the reading you just did but really it’s all you can think about. You play over the strong choices you made and hope you made a sparkling impression. You laugh at the other scene readings and clap along with everyone else- it’s not good to be a diva.

The director asks my name and for me to read again with Niles wearing the beret cap, and I try to make strong physical movements as well as timing choices. I guess I just read the script like I am trying to have fun with it. I hope it’s funny.. I read one more time as a different part. Truly I don’t know one part from the next and just have a basic sense of who they are from the quick plot description.

We leave and go to Fat Stan’s for Claire to play at Open Mic Night.

I am feeling elation from the rush of being back in the saddle, remembering my love of acting and the high of grasping a talent with a full clutch. Fuck humility, I’ve never been very good at it. I am thrilled to feel really impressive at something.
I believe that there are people out there who are truly humble but I can’t say I’m one of them.

To me: cold readings feel like survival of the fittest and I must spear fish in the water in order to survive. I suppose it’s nothing personal when I say “oh they’re not very good” or even “oh yeah they are really good” and all the feelings of inferiority and/or jealousy that come with these thoughts.
In theory, everyone would be talented and perfect for the part and we would all get cast. But we don’t. Sometimes it’s me who isn’t cast, sometimes it is. I don’t know, I do believe in the importance of being level-headed about your own abilities. After all: being a good actor never saved anyone’s life, it’s not a crucial skill.

But really, regardless of the outcome of this audition, I’m filled with happiness to have gotten to flex those acting muscles after so long I swear a layer of dust floated off. I know a lot more about life since the last time I lifted a script.

Acting has been my dream since the 10th grade, and quickly wove itself inextricably into my self-worth and identity. Since that time, I’ve had to find my own path for survival and footing in this world and the dream of acting was too heavy. Like a bottle of water in your pack that you can’t drink, I had to lighten my load because I was not strong enough to carry it. It was a grief in my 20s, lowering the weight of my plans to the ground and walking away.

BUT — and this is a big but — I’ve returned to that place in the forest to find that the dream I left behind has taken a different shape, and so have I.
My expectations are perhaps not the same. Perhaps I’m not a failure for not being a professional actress. Perhaps it was only human that I had to seek out other ways of making life work for a while. But maybe we leave our dreams and they leave us because we both need to grow.

What I mean by this is: I used to think, when I had just graduated college and the years that followed, that I had to do a certain kind of acting.
Community theatre was not impressive enough, ensemble work was not impressive or swaggy, but I knew I couldn’t make a go of it full time. I can’t get into all the reasons because that’s not the focus of this post. Nevertheless, I’ve been wandering the woods looking up at the mountains of Alaska and admiring the scenery of circumstance that has unfolded and unknowingly stumbled back into a passion I had lost indefinitely: the stage. It’s come back to be in the form of a small-town theatre in Frontier Alaska, a rain forest with an astounding arrangement and a bizarre ecosystem.

When I auditioned for graduate programs for acting, I didn’t make it past the screening audition.
My junior year, I went to the National Acting something-or-other competition AATC? Some fustian front of letters. I didn’t make it past the screening audition. But I got cast in so many shows in college! Why wasn’t I able to pursue my dream in these other contexts? I silently assumed that I wasn’t as talented as I wanted to be, and I wasn’t strong enough to battle the odds of Broadway or Hollywood, rejection and money pits and eating Top Ramen waiting for my lucky break. I just couldn’t justify the risk of pursuing that seemingly impossible career.
I decided it would hurt less to do something totally out of my wheelhouse than to pursue something I loved and fail at it.
So I did. I taught kids for a while and needed health benefits so I got a job in an office. It was painful, nearly every minute of it. Not just because I wasn’t acting, but because A: It was not a stimulating job, at all, B: I didn’t connect with the business culture, at all, and C: it was work. My first real grown up job that could ostensibly last until I retired. It felt like staring into a dark pit of sad adulthood, wrinkles and meaninglessness.
I left. I made the best decision. In fact, it was the only decision: I needed to leave because I was miserable. I stayed 2.5 years, that was long enough.

But leaving the comfort of a steady salary and comfortable arrangement didn’t suggest that I would inevitably return to my shack of dreams: my Idina Menzel, Sutton Foster, belting every high note in the car Chicago soundtrack on repeat hope deferred but not forgotten: to light up the stage in just the way I want, to feel powerful and beautiful and effortless but totally in control in my spotlight of passion: theatre. I left my job assuming I’d find a less miserable, but nonetheless unsatisfying, job to fill the space and pay the bills, rinse and repeat. But something else revealed itself! A job I do like which is working on the dock in Alaska. And moreover, the 50th anniversary of a town play, a town which I happen to adore in spite of and because of its quirks. I might as well have tripped over the dream I’d left behind.

I’d like to get the role of “Madame” but I will be happy to play anything. Sure, I’d love to be a lead role. It’s a rush, a thrill and a place of importance.

But I think the vital importance was reconnecting with my joy of acting even if it’s through the course of this petite audition.