Less than a year after graduating from college, I heard about an open audition for a tour of Forever Plaid. I expected it to be just a good audition experience. But after crooning “Stranger in Paradise,” I got offered a role and, with it, my Equity card. I couldn’t believe it. To me, the words “Actors’ Equity” were like magical words from a fairy-tale dream, like “bibbidi-bobbidi-boo” or “abracadabra” or “Ashley Judd.”
I would be understudying the roles of Sparky and Smudge. Not the toughest roles, but I was ill-prepared for the challenge of being an understudy in a production halfway through its tour. I was accustomed to rehearsals – you know, in the plural sense, “of or pertaining to multiple times.” Now, I had to be performance-ready after just one dress rehearsal. The dance captain, and the other “Plaids,” were very gracious the few times I went on, nudging me in the right direction, making subtle, little signals, while I sharpened my peripheral vision to follow their lead.
I got through it, but it was hardly an auspicious foray into my career as an Equity actor. I learned through that experience that the surest bet was to simply memorize the entire play – including every role, not just my own – to know the whole show as well as possible, which is what I’ve sought to do ever since then. So after developing a habit of learning every role, I suppose it wasn’t that much of a leap for me to actually play every role, which is what I ended up doing in King David – all twenty characters.
Still, I gotta say, it’s a heck of a lot easier than being an understudy.
