November the 28th

I had no fancy title for today's post, so I figured today's date would have to do. A friend of mine in Philadelphia called me this morning to tell me that she got an agent - so congratulations to you, Kelly. I missed the call when I was in the shower, getting ready for my two auditions this morning. One was for Lotto 649, the other was a callback for the Wendy's commercial from last week.

The Lotto commercial was surprisingly fun: myself and two other 20-somethings played the kids, surprising our father during a board meeting with balloons, cake, and the news that we had just won the lottery. While myself and my 'siblings' waited for our cue, we speculated amongst ourselves about our family history - were we all the same age because we were triplets, or were we adopted? We also noted the cake that had been provided for the audition. It was the most generic cake we had ever seen, suitable for any occasion from "You passed you driver's test!" to "We're sorry your cat died". For some reason we also joked about the contents of the cake, suggesting it contained meat. During one take, my attractive redheaded "sister" happily exclaimed "We got you a meat cake daddy!". I think I was the only one who heard her.

The Wendy's callback was much stranger. The gist of the commercial is that I (the dashingly handsome everyman customer) try to order chicken nuggets, but am told that I can only order a chicken burger by the embittered counter employee. We wrestle over the microphone, until I finally give in. Now the guy I read with last week is a fantastic improviser I know from the Bad Dog Theatre, so naturally we both had fun and the audition went well. He played the part very deadpan, which is funny considering that the final commercial will have his character wearing a giant chicken suit. Today, however, I was paired with two different partners. The first had a kind of stoic intensity suitable for prison movies, and actually managed to scare me. A little. The second guy squeezed my hand when we were wrestling over the imaginary microphone, hard enough that he seemed convinced it would eventually yield a diamond. It's amazing how physically inappropriate some actors will be in audition situations. One improv book that I read actually had an audition section labeled "Don't Hit Your Scene Partners".

Speaking of acting, last week I auditioned for a student film. While I didn't get cast in the lead role I originally read for, I did get offered a small speaking role as a convenience-store clerk. I accepted the part (it would have meant one more ACTRA Apprentice credit) and went to my first production meeting yesterday. However, last night the dirctor called me, and informed me that my part had been written out of the script, thanks for coming out, etc. I'm not so bummed about losing the opportunity to give up a Saturday night and work for free; what gets me is that I'll never know if I made some mistake or said something which caused them to remove my part from the entire screenplay. I know it sounds crazy, but remember what I said about taking things in this business personally?

So now I'm at work, waiting out the first day of my last two weeks. And I'm trying to figure out what colour to paint my bedroom. I'm thinking blue, but then, I usually think blue. Any thoughts?