A True New York City Morning

October 1st.  Fresh, crisp, fall.  I head to Union Square and am greeted by the sight of police, barricades and chanting girls clad a variety of creative and bizarre outfits ranging from "Hot Topic" to "Hair."  It was the SlutWalk aka, as so eloquently put by a friend of mine, "every NYU lesbian's ex-girlfriend parade." 

(...Actually, when I was in Ithaca last week, Cornell's slut walk also passed by me... the sluts are following me?  At the same time they happened upon a group of 80 year old alumni taking a campus tour... after which the fratty male tour guide found himself forced to attempt an explanation of the situation...)

Anyway, I head away from Union Square, as the "sluts" stream towards me, and head to my audition, one of the only logical reasons in my mind to be up and at 'em before noon on a Saturday.  I arrive at Theater for a New City, a cool (and large!) space, which appears to have been pulled right out of RENT, that I must have passed by a number of times in my life but never really noticed.  I walk in and am greeted by a younger Johnny Depp rocking this look (and I dare say, pulling it off) minus the facial hair, who of course turns out to be the director of the film I'm auditioning for.

oh hey.

But wait!  Minor major snafu!  The e-mail with the audition information, which was slightly unclear to begin with, only went out the girls... who were supposed to read with the guys... so this is going to be a "practice" audition... and we'll have the "real one" sometime next week.  Ok...?  Out of 21 girls invited to audition during the vague time frame of "noon-5" (apparently narrowed down, along with 18 guys, from a pool of 650+, as we were so informed in our e-mail...) only 5 of us are there by 1pm.  One of them is not a day under 35 (though she resembles a taller Kristin Chenoweth) and another, while also super cute, has an exotic foreign accent (and I do believe the type here was supposed to be all-American girl next door, age 20-28, but hey, I'm not one to judge!)

oh hey.

I have my "practice audition" and the adorably sheepish director who clearly has no idea what he is doing gives me a high five and compliments (at least, I think that was a compliment... was that a compliment?) my "obvious" theater background.  Then he makes note of some possible line edits and asks if I'd like to read again in a bit or if I feel ready to come back in next week to read with "the big dogs" or "hot shots" or some other cliched term.  I choose option 2 and exit with a friendly smile and a wave. 

Back to Union Square where I pick up a not-as-healthy-as-it-looks lunch from the Whole Foods salad bar and the fall air inspires a clearly very necessary pumpkin cookie to go with it.  I pop on the train to Herald Square to spend my in-between audition time hiding out at my mom's office, a convenient resting spot for those awkward chunks of time where the upper east side seems far to far away, but killing 3 1/2 hours at a Starbucks seems entirely unappealing.

As I exit the train, I feel loud music wash over me, and what's this?  More barricades, police, and a gigantic red and yellow clad Asian-marching band?  Oh good, it's the tail end of the "Korea Times Parade."  Well then.  After a bit of crowd-darting and an elevator ride in which a student who appears to be moving two floors blocks me in the elevator with her cart, I am safe and sound, finally quiet and at peace... where instead of hunkering down to learn lines and review sides I plop down in front of instant netflix and determinedly write this blog post despite the fact that firefox crashes three times before I can finish.  Thank goodness blogger saves drafts.

Barely 3pm, it's pouring now and I have two more auditions and my final monologue coaching session spread out oh so conveniently (note the sarcasm) in time and space before this day ends.

Happy October New York.

P.S. I was thinking of holding on publishing this post on the off-chance that someone (perhaps even Mr. Depp Jr. himself) were to come across it before the completion of the casting process for this film and it were to hurt my chances. However, I decided to take the risk. If you are reading this Johnny Jr. I hope you will disregard it or look on it favorably, as something charming that perhaps a witty and sarcastic character, such as Kaitlyn herself, would write, and know that none of it was meant in an insulting manner. I would love to work with you on your super cute film and think that if you want your Kaitlyn to be 22 years old, I'm your girl ;) Also, If you're still having trouble with the dog's name, I think simply "Murphy" is much better name than "Mr. Murphy Lee."  I think the kind of girl that names her dog "Mr. Murphy Lee" is probably really annoying. Thank you. That is all. I think.