Chapter 2

I walked by the “Edwin Booth Fine Arts Center.” The door was open and I decided to take a look. There was a large lobby. About halfway down a hallway there was several open doors. I could hear voices coming from inside. I walked down and looked in. It was an auditorium with a large stage. About fifty students were sitting down in front. On the stage there was a woman sitting at a table off to the side. She appeared to be in her thirties. I assumed she was a faculty member. I walked in and sat in the back.

The woman on the stage noticed me and she said, “Are you here to audition?” At first, I did not realize that she was addressing her question to me. Then she said, “If you are here to audition, come down and sit in the front.”

All of the students turned in my direction to see who she was addressing. I suddenly became self conscience. In a nervous voice I said, “I’m just watching, thank you.”

One of the students down in front stood and began to walk in my direction. She had a clipboard in her hand. I was sitting on the aisle. She handed me the clipboard with a form attached. She requested that I fill it out. She said that she would come back in a few minutes and collect it. I looked at the form. It requested answers to all kinds of questions. The first few lines were the standard inquiry questions, such as name, dorm address, phone, male/female, etc. The next few questions were more exploratory, such as roles you have played in the past, theatrical training and when and where did you study. It also listed a group of other interests, such as stage manager, lighting and sound technician and so forth. The form prompted to circle one or more. I thought about it for a minute and circled “stage manager”.

The woman on the stage was calling names. She was inviting them to come up on the stage. She was handing them scripts and assigning them parts to read. About the time I had finished filling out the form, the student came back to where I was sitting. She took the clipboard from me. After a quick glance at the form, she instructed me to follow her to the front of the auditorium. Self consciously, I stood and walked with her slowly to one of the seats next to where she was sitting. The first group of students began reading the assigned parts. When they finished, the young woman who had collected my form stood. She walked to the apron of the stage. Then she handed it up to one of the students who had just finished reading. She said something to the student. The student took the form and gave it to the woman sitting on the stage at the table.

The woman looked down at the form for a few seconds, and then she looked in my direction. “Can I interest you in reading for one of the parts in the play? We are short on male actors,” she pointed out.

I looked around. There were only two other male students there besides myself. I stood and addressed her. “I’m sorry, but I’m not an actor. I’ve never been on stage in a play,” I assured her.

“Come up here and let me get a better look at you,” she insisted. I thought I had better do as she requested. She may turn out to be one of my professors sometime in the future. I walked to the apron of the stage. She looked down at me. “Would someone show, as she looked down at the form, Mr. Mason how to get up onto the stage,” she said to one of the students sitting in the first row. A young woman stood, she took me by the arm and escorted me to a door off to the side.

There were about a half dozen steps leading to the back stage area. I walked out onto the stage and stood in the center.

“I think that you would be perfect for the second male lead. Now, I would like to hear you read,” she commanded. She handed me a script and began to call other students names.

One of the things that I did notice while standing next to several of these young women was that there was an abundance of beauty. I deduced that the majority were a few years older than me. I always looked a few years older than my age. They had no way of knowing that I was their junior.

The play was “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder. The woman at the table introduced herself to me.

“My name is Professor Surino.” She began to assign the parts. She asked me to read the part of the “Stage Manager”. I had no idea what the “Stage Manager” did within the play. As I began to read, I figured it out. The “Stage Manager” was a narrator. He did not interact with any of the characters in the play. He would set the scene for the coming action. I found the dialogue easy enough to read. As we read, I found myself getting into it.

When we finished, one of the young woman congratulated me on my reading. I was getting this feeling that I cannot describe. Later I learned it was called getting the “bug” in the theater. Professor Surino requested that I stay on stage. She called another group to read. She wanted me to read the “Stage Manager” part again. We repeated this reading with all of the students who were trying out.