Treading the boards
So, I had my first professional audition in 21 years today. I know, "Brand, You're a programmer, not an actor!" However, in reality, I've been acting for most of my life.

When I was five, I was the youngest person ever to play the lead in my school play (a kindergartener outshining the fifth graders was something of a coup). I played an acting lead all through my school years. When I was nine years old, I had a leading part in a feature at the San Antonio Little Theater, and I was in a couple of episodes of Sonny Melendrez's Disney channel exercise show. In High School, I entered in the UIL one-act play every year (some years, we nearly made it to state). In college, I took acting as all of my electives. While working for video game companies, I did voice acting for every project I was working on. Basically, if it wasn't for computer programming, I would have been a starving actor a long time ago.

So, now that I'm unemployed, I'm taking the opportunity to rekindle my passion for the theater. I checked on open auditions near me, and went to the first one today. I had to present an audition piece, and since I couldn't find one I really liked, I just turned one of my blog posts into a monologue, and presented it.

You know, there's a feeling I'd almost totally forgotten about. I'd forgot what performing in front of people does for my metabolism. It might just be me, but I don't think so. What happens is, I get really nervous before a performance. That's normal, and everybody gets that. When I try to talk through my monologue, I get it wrong every time. I'm always skipping parts, dropping parts, adding unnecessary ad-libs, and (worst of all) stopping dead in the middle of the performance. I pace, I crack my knuckles, I can't sit still.

When I walk on the stage, though, that all stops. As soon as I have a group of people with their eyes on me, I totally cool off. Suddenly, all my speech is smooth, measured, correct. The fight or flight instinct floods my body with adrenaline, my eyesight gets better, my concentration is razor sharp, and every word comes to me with ease. Even though I'd spent the previous few hours sweating out the details of the performance, when I get up on stage, I feel totally cool, like my blood has turned cold, and every muscle motion is a calculated effect. I have complete control of my body and mind, and I feel so cold, I have to suppress a chill. I feel happy and excited, full of energy and ready to bounce off the walls. Then, when the performance is done, I'm on a high that lasts for hours. I feel like I can do anything, I sing along with the radio, I dance in my car seat, I generally make an utter fool of myself.

I'd forgot how great it feels. After the audition, they asked me if I had any questions, and all I could think of was, "When's the next audition? When do we start filming? Christ, put me back up there!"

I know it's because of the manic depression. In fact, once it wears off, I crash hard, and nap for hours. But I don't care. All I know is that I want that feeling again. I want to do that as much as I can, and for as long as I can.

I figure, that's the way all actors are. It's not that we're looking for fame or attention, it's just that we thrive on the pressure of having tens, hundreds, thousands of eyes on us. That kind of pressure triggers the adrenaline and endorphins. That pressure makes us perform better than we ever could without it, and we just want to hold that feeling for as long as we can.

Somehow, I could see how this ties to actors with addictions, because when you walk off stage, you feel so good that you just want to go party. Now I am not the most wild party animal, but when I walked off that stage, I wanted to go dance. I wanted to go party. I wanted to spend time with friends, do exciting stuff, and live life large for a while. I guess, if I was a popular actor, who does this all the time, I'd spend a lot of time partying, and I'd probably be weakened in the face of a lot of the partying temptations (sex, drugs, drinking, etc.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to look forward to an addiction (I could do that without acting). I'm just saying that I can empathise with how so many of these people fall into such traps.


acting
- posted by BrandG @ 12:57 PM