The Smell of Greasepaint, the Roar of the Crowd

Now I've really done it. Apparently, yours truly will be appearing in the Lemon Grove Theatre Guild’s production of “He Ain’t Done Right by Nell!” this coming September.

The theatre guild is a revival project of the Lemon Grove Historical Society. The classic melodrama in one act will be directed by society secretary Josie Kane. Auditions for the play were held on July 10 and 11. My cold reading of the lines at the H. Lee House in Civic Center Park on Sunday was acceptable enough to land a role in the show.

Auditioning for a play takes some thick skin. You have to be willing to put yourself up for failure. An acting friend in L.A. once told me he averaged about 30 auditions for each role in which he was cast. If you were a professional baseball player, that means you would be carrying a .033 batting average and, unless you were a pitcher in the National League, you would be booed every time you stepped to the plate.

I am quite familiar with theatre, including the different spellings of the word. It is pretty simple—you go to a theater to see a play, but what you are watching is theatre. Over the years I have had many wonderful times acting, directing, and producing plays. The one thing that failed me was the art of auditioning, coupled with my fear of rejection.

I had a bad experience. Having just turned 20 years old, I finally worked up the courage to read for a production at the Old Globe in Balboa Park. The play was Shakespeare's “Richard III” and I had studied very hard for a minor role that I thought was a good fit.

But walking into the audition, the director stared at me and proclaimed, “Yes! It’s Richard. You read Richard.”

Dumbstruck is the word to describe how I felt as he handed me the script to read for the lead character part. I froze terribly and stuttered through a dozen lines before the director mercifully stopped me with a thank you and I left invisibly.

After that, I realized no matter how prepared you are for your audition, you can still be tossed a curve ball. Even the most seasoned actors get nervous before performing. No one wants to make mistakes, but it happens to all of us at one time or another. The important lessons I took to heart were not to focus on my failures, but to learn from them while remembering my successes. Now I think of auditions as a learning process—then the fear of failure doesn’t have as much power over me.

“He Ain’t Done Right by Nell” opens Sep. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Gazebo Courtyard of the . Additional performances will be: H. Lee House, Sep. 17 at 7:30 p.m., Sep. 18 at 2 p.m.; Sonrise Hall (formerly the Women's Club), Sep. 23–24 at 7:30 p.m., Sep. 25 at 2 p.m.

Break a leg, Lemon Grove. Or, as the late John Carradine told me before going on stage, Merde!

You look it up ...