Trauma Club

You spend all night looking for that perfect 30 second-1 minute monologue. Has to be the right genre that matches the play. You spend about two hours memorizing it. You lose so much sleep over it. You wake up wishing you had more time to sleep, but the alarm clock disappoints. You get ready for the day going through that monologue over and over again. You kick yourself because you're messing up lines that were otherwise stronger last night. You get to school and greet your fellow thespians, encouraging them, saying how they'll be great while they're as nervous as you. You get through the first half of classes reciting every word to your monologue. You get to lunch, but how can you eat? Every breath you take feels like you're gonna puke. No, you have to keep practicing. You WANT to make the cut! It HAS TO BE PERFECT! You make it through the rest of your classes. You wait for the director to call your name. You know what time you signed up for but everyone else is quick so you might go in early. You must use this time to prepare. Then you hear it. Your name. The time has come. You walk in with as much confidence as you can muster up. You introduce yourself and say where you got your monologue from. You recite each word with so much character and emotion as humanly possible.

Before you realize it, you finish. You thank the casting judges and walk out. You're relieved, but you know it's not over yet. You know there's still callbacks and you really have to ace that if the judges even want you to come back. You lay in bed late at night again thinking about your monologue. Was it good enough for them? Did you mess up at all? Who knows? It's not like you can do it over. You wake up just as nervous as yesterday. You get to school knees buckled and a knot in your stomach. You inch your way to the cast list. You wait for every excited/disappointed guy and gal to walk away from the list. Your fate rests upon that sheet of paper. You read it, and guess what? You see your name! You hold in all your excitement and wait till you're far away to jump for joy. You're more relieved, but it's still not over. You still have to actually DO the callback. You get to the theater and hear the director's words. Every exercise and line read circles through your head. You must have played and listened to each scene and character about 1,000 times. After three hours of waiting and acting, you're sent home. The knot's still there but at least you know you're almost done. You repeatedly tell yourself that whatever happens, you will still be happy that you tried out. You go to school the next morning. You see more excited and disappointed faces walking away from the cast list and wait your turn. An even bigger fate awaits you. You read the list. You skim carefully to not skip over your name. Your finger stops. There you are! You don't even care who you're playing, you're just happy that you're in it. There's a revelation that comes over you. The same one that comes with every audition. You wait and get more and more nervous each day for this. It's not healthy and it can't be good for your mental health, but you do it anyway. Why? Because you love it. You find yourself around these people who are still stuck in that 2008 emo stage and you love them all. You find yourself in general all for theatre. All for the stage.