My day of the three auditions was fast approaching. The Jitter was gone but now I had the shits.
Three Auditions on the one day? What the feck was going on? Of course I was delighted but if you multiply the nerves I get when going to one audition by three then you get a seriously sick stomach. Add to this the fact the on this faithful day of intestine tangling audition action I also had a sound check and complete run through of Wind in the Willows. The audition for 'The Country Wife' was at 10.30am, 'Beckett' was at 1.30pm and 'Putting it together was at 5.45pm. Aaaaaagh! Of course the singing audition would be the last one of the day when I'm utterly vocally knackered (things had only slightly improved voce-wise in rehearsals). I was not the most confident of bunnies let me tell ya. But this is the business I'm in so I have to take it in me stride. There can come a point in your career as a thesp where you are so well known that you no longer have to audition. You just have meetings. I'm very far off that to be quite honest. More's the fucking pity! So the script for 'Country Wife' arrives, I go out and by the script for Beckett (the one I'd really like to get) and for the Sondheim audition I start scabbing music off of friends because all of my songs are in storage in a house in Bedford (don't ask) and I sit down and do some serious swotting. I'm gonna get one of these. I can feel it in me water and I want it to be Beckett. Big time.
-Interlude 1: During all of this I go and see the new Conor McPherson Play at The Royal Court donchaknow. Brilliant play, stunning acting and to top off a top evening in the bookshop afterwards I espy a sweet little bargain. All the scripts for the plays the Royal Court have produced over the years are available for a paltry 2 quid a pop. How bad. And staring down at me from the shelf is Martin McDonagh's first play 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane'. This pretty famous piece is well regarded in the history of the Déise as it originally starred one of the original Blaa actors Anna Manahan and won the West End of Waterford diva a Tony award for her troubles. Despite all that though I have never seen the bloody thing or even read it and I've been told enugh times that there is a part I could play in it so I should really have a gander. At £7.99 in your high street bookstore its a bit of a stretch at the mo (I'm out of a job soon sure, and I can't eat old scripts for dinner) but 2 pound? Sold! And off I trotted happy at me nights entertainment and frugal purchase.
End of Interlude-
And then it was before me. That day. It went something like this;
7am: I'm up and feeling groovy. I didn't go out the night before so I'm fresh as a feckin' daisy and ready for anything. Come on boy! here we go! Shower shave and a bit of breakfast and all's well with the world. Quick look at the script for the first audition. Grand not a problem. Pack me bag with the requisite change of clothes for the run and a bit of smelly, throw on the glad rags and I'm out the door, making me way to the West End, where I arrive at;
10.30am: 'Country Wife' audition. Walk in to meet the casting director whom I've met previously and the director who is a very nice chap that proceeds to tell me that they've been discussing the script and they think that the character I'm reading for should actually be Irish. Go 'way! Well that's handy. Away go all my thoughts of playing this med student as some stoned Londoner and out I come with me best blaa and it works a treat! Nice One. And throughout the audition the banter is good and I don't say anything crap and stupid like I normally do. Great start to the day.
11.30am: Sound check at Regent's Park. Out of me glad rags and onto the stage with a pin mike to sing all of me songs and the auld voce aint too bad. This is a great warm up. But the big problem is the run through. That'll knacker me big time. I'm thinking I'm gonna have to hold back a bit during that one. Oh yes indeedy. it wont be the big mad performance of Toad that has had me losing me voice for ages. Oh no I've got an audition buddy. All goes cool at the sound check then and its a quick spray of smelley, into my gladrags and off to -
1.30pm: 'Beckett' audition. This is the one I'm most anxious about. I've had a read of the script and I'm checking over bits on the tube down to the very swish flat in Mayfair where it's all about to happen. Of course the script i have is an old translation (sure it's a French play originally) and Mr. Dougray Scott aint gonna do any shitty old script but is having a brand new translation done especially. Grand so. I get there a bit early which is cool as I'm handed the new script to have a look over. Good stuff. I don't mind sight reading at all but the look over beforehand is very desirable. I go into meet the casting director who is very pleasant and encouraging, I read a bit and we chat for AGES. We just chat about loadsa stuff and I'm thinking 'this is grand, she's interested in what I'm saying. In my opinion.' and it seems to go on forever. This is a very good sign. Bit more reading and she says how she liked my reading and that she'll be in touch and as I'm leaving she says that most golden of phrases;
'And well done on Calico. I loved your performance.'
I literally skipped out the door. Nice one! Now that went really well. No, I mean REALLY well. So well I had lost all sense of time while I was in there, so i look at my watch. Aw shit! It's
2.05pm: I'm sprinting up towards Bond street station at this stage because I had promised the director of Willows I'd be back for them to start the run at 2 sharp. Not a sign. The thing is though that i don't come on stage for nearly twenty minutes at the start of the show so maybe they'll start without me in the hope that I'll have arrived by the time they get to my first bit.
2.20pm: They'd started without me! I run into the rehearsal room literally just as I'm supposed to make my entrance in the show. Great timing on their part I must say but I'm bolloxed from all the rushing and I don't even get a chance to change clothes. Not to worry though, I'll take this run pretty handy, don't want to over exert myself with another audition to come today, now do I? Me bollox. As I gently saunter rather than whack into my first few lines I notice a figure sitting among the gathering that's watching the run. Ah no! It's only the erstwhile artistic director of the Open Air Theatre. A sound man if ever I met him, and indeed it was him that gave me my first job in the London. He also very famously played Toad in the West End for 11 Christmases on the trot. I was bricking it about auditions but now I'm shitting meself about him watching me play his part for the first time...and he's taking notes!! That's his job as AD of course but that makes me worse. So the thoughts of doing a low energy run is out the window boy. Big time. I whack into it with style after that and it goes really well but by the end I'm feckin' knackered. The last thing I need now is another audition......
5.45pm: Another audition. I peg it down to Clapham from the park hoping the auld smelly is doing its job overtime as I haven't had a chance to have a shower after the run and I am rank with sweat. Jesus! One of the other lads out of Willows is with me as he has an audition for the same part. Of course there is no tension between us. We're professionals. We don't let tawdry things like work get in the way of friendship. That said if he gets the part over me I'll be like a dog! I'm downing water like a good thing and the nerves are really kicking in. Much more so than for the last two auditions. You see there's no lines to read here. This is the one I have to sing at and nothing fills me with more dread. I don't know why singing auditions give me nightmares, I mean I came to the London to study musical theatre, surely I'd be alright with singing an auld song? Nope. It gives me the fear. What makes it worse of course is the way my voice has been for the past few weeks. Shite in other words. Also I feel really unprepared, its my first time singing at an audition in months and I had no music so i had to just pick out what I knew from me flatmate's music. It amounted to 3 songs. 2 of which were grand and easy but one of them is a bitch big time and I'm really not sure me voice will be up for it after the day I've had. Hopefully they wont ask me for that one.
Some hope.
In I go and there's a bit of chat, they tell me that the show isn't happening until christmas which seems ages and ages away and they ask me that old faithful..
'So what are you going to sing for us today?'
'Well I've brought 'Good Thing Going'
'Oh' says the musical director. Now I'm worried. 'What else have you brought? May I have a look at your music?'
No....... But of course I let him. Just as long as he doesn't pick 'Giants in the Sky' that's the bitch.
'Why don't we have "Giants in the Sky' instead?'
Crap.
But I needn't have worried. It went great. I don't know where the voice came out of but all the high notes were there and the panel were impressed enough to ask me to sing the first song I suggested as well. Sweet! That went well too and they said thank you and I walked out and nearly collapsed. What a day. Now it was over there was only one thing to do......go to the opening night of a musical at Regent's Park and get shitfaced. And so I did.
-Interlude 2: I'm having a quiet auld drink with that Larry Olivier of Lisduggan Mr. Brian 'Dots' Doherty when he stakes me to some very valuable advice. He had heard from a very reliable source that York Theatre Royal are planning to put on Beauty Queen of Leenane in November. Sure that's gas didn't i just buy the script for that the other day. Maybe its a sign. I tell me agent about and forget about it. Gas.
End of interlude-
So the waiting by the phone began. It wasn't too long thankfully and calls came from both 'Country Wife' and 'Beckett' (yes!) saying I had recalls the following week. Cool. No joy with the Sondheim show but you can't win them all and they said they liked me so that's not too bad. but now the work to get 'Beckett' began in earnest. I really wanted to get this gig as it was big time West End stuff which doing 'Calico' had made me hungry for. Cool. Also both jobs started 3 weeks after Willows finishes so that would mean I could fly back to the land of the Déise and write the music for 'The Lord of the Flies'. It couldn't get better. Now all I needed was to get the job. Like I said, if only life was that simple. The phone holler's, the agent proclaims;
'You have an audition for 'Beauty Queen of Leenane'.
I told you it was a sign. I'm glad I bought that fecking script.So I had started with 3 auditions and had ended up with 2 recalls and another audition.
Things do happen in threes but all I wanted was one.
Which one would it be?
PS. Just a quick note to say that throughout all of this Wind in the Willows had opened and was going down a storm. nearly 1,200 people a show, good weather, I got some of the best reviews of me career (With the exception of the Gaurdian which didn't mention me at all in the review but proceeded to print a huge photo of me beside it. Adding insult to injury really!) and the voice had been holding out grand. Of course i had been taking it easy and only went out at the weekend, but lets not talk of such an uneventful time. I was in a hit! I was sharing a dressing room with Russ Abbott! How bad. just in case you wanted to know.
