Back In The Saddle

I have been itching to perform lately. I guess I am just tired of waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever does. It is pilot season right now, so agents and managers are busy getting auditions for their current clients and don't have time to look at new people who don't have any L.A. credits to their name. Either that or I am really ugly and every time I send my headshot to them they open it and have the dry heaves until they can throw it into the garbage. If that is the case then I am in some real trouble out here. Nevertheless I keep mailing them out hoping someone takes an interest in me.

Last week I saw an ad in Back Stage West for auditions for a place called the L.A. Connection Comedy Club. Back Stage West is a newspaper that tells you what is going on in the L.A. acting world. It is one of the "trades" as people here refer to that sort of thing.

I go to the theater which is in Sherman Oaks, not to far away from me. I really don't like improv auditions because I have to feel comfortable with a person to really have a good scene with them at an audition. There are only about 7 of us auditioning, including on Armenian kid who is 14 and he is only auditioning for school credit.

Sidenote: I am 30 years old and can barely grow any facial hair. This kid was 14 and had a five o'clock shadow that I could never get if I live to be 100.

The audition consists of a quick silent warm-up, 3 short 2 person scenes, and doing 3 character voices or imitations. I did not think that I had a particularly strong audition, but I was accepted into the theater.

I start out going to classes once a week, and when they think I am ready, they will start putting me into shows. My first class was Monday. It has been raining for a week straight here and everything is beginning to flood. I was driving up the 101 North and traffic was HORRIBLE. I had never been in traffic that bad. I was going to be really late if it kept going this way. A couple of miles up I found out why it was so bad. The 101 had flooded on both the North and South sides. In the direction that I was going, there was only one lane that was shallow enough for cars to get through it. This entire part of the highway was under water. I started to freak out. There way no where I could go. Everything was under water, and if I stopped, I would be holding up the already stalled traffic. I had no choice but to drive forward. I got in behind a mini-van and the water started to get higher and higher. My car is a very small 4 door sedan, and I knew if it got too deep, my car would stall and I would be up a creek. But I kept driving and the water kept getting higher.

I had a friend who went to the University of Illinois. One night around 3 in the morning he couldn't sleep and went driving out in the farmland of central Illinois. It was raining and the road he was on started getting filled with water. He thought it couldn't get much deeper, but it did. When he decided to reverse because it was getting to deep, his car stalled. Then the water got much deeper and his car sunk. Turns out a river had burst it's banks and the excess water all went into the road. His car was ruined.

This was the one thought that went through my mind as I was driving through this lake that was the 101. I kept screaming in the car "Let's go, come on, keep it up", just random words of encouragement for me and my car. When the water got as high as my headlights, I knew I was in deep trouble. But just as soon as my headlights disappeared under the water, they popped back out again and I was going up. I made it! Since there was no traffic after that I made it to class on time.

Class was pretty fun. I am not used to doing short form games, but I got into it and had a good time. I can tell you right now that I could perform tomorrow and be fine. I just need to learn the games that they perform on stage and then I will be ready. I felt good after class, like I was accomplishing something.

They finally shut down the part of the 101 where the water had collected. They also shut down parts of the 5, the 405, and the 710 due to flooding or mud slides. We have received more rain in the past couple of weeks than we did all of last year. I don't mind the rain, but it really makes things difficult to get around when they shut down highways.

But at least I have something positive to look forward to.