The Waiting is the Hardest Part... Except for the Unemployment. And the Rejection.

One of the nicest letters I ever got was a rejection letter.

And by "nicest", I don't just mean how it was phrased. I mean it was sincerely one of the most thoughtful, restore-my-faith-in-humanity missives it was ever my pleasure to receive.

So much so that, even after more than a decade, I still think of it fondly.

The letter in question notified me in simple, straightforward terms that despite the fact that I had auditioned for them, the Texas Shakespeare Festival would not be requiring my services as an actor for their upcoming season.

What made the letter so nice was the fact that it's pretty much the only letter like it I can ever remember getting. You know the old phrase "Don't call us, we'll call you?" Well, it's pretty much the way things work after an audition, and for good reason. A producer has very little motivation to let you know that they've cast someone else, because a) they might not work out, and they might want to cast you later on down the line, and b) who wants to tell anyone bad news, much less an emotionally needy bucket of HIREMEHIREMEHIREME desperation like most actors?

I can say, though, that for most of us (emotionally needy and desperate though we may be), we'd love to hear that we didn't get the job. Not nearly as much as that we did, but much more than not hearing anything at all. Certainty may be disappointing, but it's still certainty.

Actors are, by nature, optimistic creatures, at least when it comes to issues of our own talent. If we weren't, we wouldn't be actors; it's very hard to get a human being to step out onstage in front of several hundred people if they don't think it will go well. Surface insecurities and perfectionism aside, we tend to think, deep down, that it will go very well indeed.

"You bitches have no idea how hard I'm about to rock your world."

So, no matter how many times reality tells us otherwise, unless it's the kind of massive screwup where you tripped and spilled scalding tea on the director, forgot your entire monologue, and then peed yourself (and those do happen), actors leave every audition secure in the knowledge that the role is ours.

And then we wait.

And wait.

And wait.

"...but the callback was only eight months ago!"

And then nine times out of ten (if we're lucky!) nobody calls.

Someone I know (who works in a more normative industry) once spent several months without a job. Every job she applied for and didn't get was crushing rejection; a referendum on her very worth as a human being. I understood her frustration, but it stood in marked contrast to the kind of... disassociative attitude I've had to develop about employment.

See, when you're applying for new jobs not every few years, or every few months, or every few days even, but constantly, and you're only booking one in ten or twenty or thirty, you learn to forget you even applied. I have a rule with my parents (who, god bless 'em, are fervently supportive of my artistic and professional success) that they were only allowed to ask me about a given audition once, and that if I said "It went fine," that meant I wasn't going to say a damn thing more on the matter. Because if I did, that meant I would think about it, which would mean I would start to consider my odds, which means I would be mentally sitting by the phone waiting for a call like a girl left home from the prom.

Which kinda... wears on you, after a while.

So you learn to toss every audition out the window after it's done. You learn not to want it one second after you've stepped out the door. It's a kind of nasty little mindfuck, in some ways, but it saves your ego, and your sanity, and ultimately is a more realistic approach to things, because it's very seldom ever personal. Once you reach a certain level of talent and skill -- once you "clear the bar", as it were -- casting comes down to a whole lot of things beyond your control. You can kinda pick your reason, because most of the time you'll never know why you weren't cast.

My favorite is I look a little too much like the director's devastatingly handsome ex-boyfriend who broke their heart forever, and subconsciously they just couldn't deal with it.

Every once in a while, though, one of those auditions comes along that you can't help falling in love with, a little. That you can't help wanting. God, do I hate them.

Professionally, it's been a tough stretch for me, as it has for many people. It's been a year since I set foot on a stage. I had two of those kind of "I can't help falling in love" opportunities on my plate recently (one as an actor, one as a playwright) , and the sound of the phone not ringing became thuddingly obvious this past week on both of them. It's at times like these I wonder why I chose a career which came with periodic existential crises instead of a 401K.

As Mike Rowe said in his recent TED Talk, "'Follow your passion' is probably the worst advice I ever got." I love it, but god do I hate it sometimes. Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be actors. No matter how much they idolize that glorious bastard Edmund Kean.

Famed classical actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) in a portrait painted shortly before his untimely death from complications from a hangnail that went untreated when his Equity health insurance ran out.

-- The Prolix Wag
Putting the "money" in "regional theatre actor"-- oh, right. There is no money in that.