It has been a while since I’ve been in an acting class. And it’s been even longer since I’ve been in an ongoing regular acting class. I’ve struggled to find a new acting class that I wanted to be in for a long time. Part of it is financial and part of it is finding someone I connect with as much as my acting coach who passed away. But I know that I should be in class because it’s always a good thing to work on your skills. So I have looked into a few different classes to see if there are any that seem to be a good match for me.
A friend of mine told me about an acting class that she is in (I’m not saying the name just to keep things a bit discrete). It’s an ongoing class that meets once a week to work on scripts. You can bring in a script you need to prepare for an audition or work on random material in class. But what is so special about the class is that there is no teacher or coach. It is a group of 12 actors that work together supporting each other. Everyone is a teacher and a student at the same time.
When she told me about this class originally, it sounded really amazing to me. I love the idea of a collaborative class where everyone is an equal. And not only did the class sound great, it was one of the cheaper classes out there because they only had to pay for the rental of the space they used. They hold auditions to join the group once or twice a year, whenever one of the 12 members is leaving the class. Sometimes they have 1 space, sometimes they have more than one. But it’s always a very limited number of spaces open when they have auditions.
My friend told me about the auditions about a month ago so I could check my schedule, and the actual audition was last week. We were given a script to work on and present to the group. Then after we did our scene there was an interview portion where the current members of the group could ask me questions. It’s so important with a small collaborative group like this that everyone gets along, so I understood why they had to do an interview along with the audition.
I don’t want to make excuses for myself, but I did not have my best audition. I was dealing with some nausea and cramps that evening. I’ve been lucky over the past 2 years because I haven’t really had any auditions on my bad days. But this time, I did have that. And because I wasn’t feeling myself, I was struggling with keeping the lines memorized. Again, I don’t want to make excuses for myself because I now know I need to work harder at being extra memorized to be prepared in case I have to audition on a bad day. But it still was unfortunate that I felt pretty bad after I finished my audition.
I felt much more confident during the interview. The questions were things that I was expecting like if I could commit to the time the class was held, if I was ok with how much the class cost, and what I would bring to a group like this. I tried to answer as openly and honestly as I could without rambling too much. I was very conscious about making my answers solid and quick so I didn’t seem unsure of my answers. I was actually much more prepared for the interview part and was expecting much harder questions, so when it was done I was almost shocked that it was over.
When I left, I told my friend I was sorry that my audition was bad. I knew it wasn’t great, but she let me know that it was good and that I did a great job. But she also let me know the next day that I didn’t get accepted into the group. It wasn’t a surprise to me (I would have been surprised if I did get into the group) and she gave me some notes about what the others thought. The main thing was that because I wasn’t as memorized as other people, I didn’t appear to be as prepared. It was actually good to hear that because I knew that was an issue. I was happy it wasn’t an issue I wasn’t already aware of.
Although I would have loved to have gotten into the class, I know that I can audition again the next time there is an opening. And I plan on doing just that and making sure I work even harder on my audition. I now know what to expect when I go into the room so I will be more prepared than I was last week. And hopefully I won’t have the audition on a bad day.
But even with being rejected from the class, I had the best time at this audition! Any time I get to act is an amazing day and brings me so much joy! This is how I know I’m on the right career path right now. Being rejected from an acting class is still better than my best day at my day job. And I have gotten good at rejection from auditions and other acting related experiences. It’s a part of this career and I am glad that I don’t let rejection affect me or make me question if I’m not supposed to do this.
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