(What's a Mistop? Click here!)
I had originally written this post as part of the previous Road Trip articles. However, Part 2 was too long and I really didn't have enough material to fill a Part 3, so I had to cut something. This is fine because I found I really went off on a tangent with this AND it messed up the chronology. It makes more sense as a separate article.
About a week before the Southwest Theatre Conference in Ft. Worth, TX, I was in Dr. W's office. He was on the committee for the conference. I had to give him my application for the auditions, which also included a photograph. I used my high school yearbook photo from my junior year because it was the only black and white one that I had. (I still kind of looked the same after four years.) In the office, I saw a resume and headshot from another actor in Texas who would be at the conference. He wasn't supposed to send that to Dr. W, but I guess he sent it to everyone on the committee. I remember being impressed by the headshot. The guy looked like a real professional actor, even though all of his experience was in college. I imagined him to be about 6' 2" tall. I wondered if I would see him at the auditions.
In my actor's audition group, I saw this one guy get up on stage. He was wearing the standard dancer's outfit, which consisted of beige tights and a tank top. The first thing he did was pull a hankerchief out, toss it up and let it float down before catching it while he presented a Shakespeare monologue. A few minutes after my audition, the recruiters posted the numbers of the actors they wanted to see. I was on three lists. I went to one recruiter to set up my appointment. While waiting to talk to the recruiter, I heard the guy in front of me tell the recruiter his name. It was the name of the actor on the resume and headshot I had seen a week before. I also recognized him as the guy with the hankerchief. And I saw that he was only about 5'6" tall! I actually wanted to get to know him better, so I arranged to meet with the recruiter at the same time he did.
There were three of us at that appointment. The third person was a woman I'll call Raz. She had medium-length blonde hair. She was very attractive and had a bubbly personality. Raz remembered my audition and complimented my singing voice. She had a great headshot. It appeared to have captured her in the middle of a laugh. She had a big smile on her face and looked like she was having fun. She said she had taken the headshot herself. (This was back in the day when you needed actual photography equipment to take a good selfie.)
The recruiters told us about what they were doing and asked us some questions. I don't remember who they were, where they were from or what it was they were going to do, but I felt flattered to be in the company of these two other actors before them. They asked the other actor if he had any comedic monologues in his repertoire. He said he could do something from "Oh, Dad, Poor Dad..." He performed the monologue, and while it contained dark humor, it certainly wasn't what I would call "funny." Seeing as this was the same guy who did Shakespeare during his audition, he appeared to be one of those guys who wanted to be seen as a "Great Actor" despite his height. It's the theatrical version of the Napoleon complex.
I never did hear back from the recruiters with a job offer. I ran into Raz a couple more times throughout the day. She really seemed to like me, even though she was clearly out of my league. I wish I had thought at the time to get her phone number, but I don't know what we would have done. I certainly wasn't planning to hook up for a one-night stand. I don't remember her last name or anything else about her. I just remember what she looked like because that headshot was so memorable. But knowing that all I needed was to ask for her phone number, this would qualify her as a Mistop.
The funny thing is that I didn't think very much about Raz until I started writing about the road trip. It really stinks that I don't remember her last name. It would have been cool to try to find her on Facebook and see what she looks like now. The dumb thing is that I remember that other guy's full name. I still couldn't find him.
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