My first encounter with a previously unknown blog reader.

Thursday night was…funny. It’s a good thing I can laugh at myself, otherwise this whole “being an actor” thing would probably make me cry. Frequently. How very Strasberg that would be…(and I can say that, I bawled my eyes out studied there for long enough…)

I went to my 10:30 PM audition and I really think that the best thing you can possibly do at 10:30 PM in front of people who have been watching countless auditions all day is be fun (well, and good, obviously). It’s called “play,” after all. And fun I am. And fun they were. But my favourite moment was our discussion of my resume (and seeing all my Shakespeare credits highlighted, methinks I probably need to start branching out…) and my latest production, the Twelfth Night…

One of my Twelfth Night castmates had auditioned earlier in the day and told the panel all about the production: the who, what, when, where, and how…but apparently one of them hadn’t been present for this. So Lovely Lady 1 told me to tell Lovely Lady 2 about the show…

Simple enough. I start giving my version of the who, what, when, where, and how, and all of a sudden Lovely Lady 2 gets this look of recognition on her face and blurts out, “OH, YOU’RE A BLOGGER!”

My reaction to this was half laugh, half cringe, a big  wow-someone-is-actually-reading-this (other than Sterling, HI STERLING!) and, “Yes, yes I am…”

So Lovely Lady 1 asks 2 how she knew that. Obviously, because I blogged about playing Maria in Twelfth Night. Which of course made me think about some of the things I blogged about Twelfth Night. And whether or not I should have blogged them…Fortunately, both Lovely Ladies were quite wonderful and fun and therefore this did not become the big awkward fest it might’ve been…

But it did all make me think on my long walk home about what I’m doing here on the interwebs. It’s inevitable that if I keep writing about these things and keep auditioning that I’m going to get “bloganized” (which is “blog” + “recognized” in case you didn’t catch it. Thanks for that, @magicalmudge) now and then. And I’m okay with that. I have a policy about not saying things behind people’s backs that I wouldn’t say to their faces. And obviously The Starving Artist here is only half the story—my half. As is any blog, really…so take it with a grain of salt…

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I started this blog because I was frustrated with what I perceived to be a lack of blogs/real stories about actors just starting out. Especially locally. I wanted to share my journey in the hopes that it might teach other people something and that they, in turn, might teach me something by sharing their stories. So far it’s going reasonably well. Plus, let’s face it, this is cheaper than therapy!

But if my mission is our mutual education (and it is) I think I have a responsibility to my readers (and seriously, if you’re reading, leave me a comment so I can properly say hello, please) and to myself to be as honest about my life as a theatre artist as possible. Because not being honest about the situation is not helpful to any of us. Honesty is educational. And, well, my candour just makes it more fun. But I do promise to do it all in the most fair and respectful way possible because, really, it is only my side of the story and I’m certainly not here to make anyone look and/or feel bad.

In the end, it was a nice audition night. And hopefully it will result in another show, but whether or not it does, it was nice to be reminded (as I frequently am these days) that there are all kinds of great people out there in the Toronto theatre community. And it was also nice to feel just a little more sure of myself, both in the virtual world and in the real one…