As we are waiting on some potentially very good news to be finalized, I am reminded of something that happened to me in theatre that first really taught me not to count my chickens before they've hatched.  That's never an easy lesson to learn, but once it happens and you can sit back and reflect on it, you know that nine times out of ten it is always for the best.

Back in my days at UNCG theatre, we had a summer theatre company.  I don't know if they still do this or not, but it was great back in the day.  As a student in the BFA program, you had to have at least one summer internship in order to graduate.  Summer theatre often provided that internship for most of us.  Since we were not a musical theatre program, finding a summer gig for straight plays was often hard for students, unless you wanted to do outdoor drama...nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, I auditioned for Summer Rep every year I was there.  The semester that Mom died, I auditioned yet again.  They were doing some good shows that year, among them were Blithe Spirit and Black Beauty.  Being a junior at the time, I had a pretty good shot of getting in that year and I was excited about the possibility.

Auditions came and went.  And, like every other audition at UNCG, we all sat around tensely waiting for the cast list to go up.  My audition was good and I felt good about my prospects.  They didn't do callbacks for Summer Rep, it was all based on the audition and your past work.  I was doing my 2nd show of the semester at the time.  We'd closed A Point of Order in February and now I was in the middle of rehearsals for The Illusion.  I was having a great semester for an undergraduate.

The day the list was going up, I was sitting on the steps out in front of Taylor Theatre.  My friend, Katie Childers came and sat with me and we had a cigarette.  She was one of the directors for Summer Rep that year, doing Black Beauty, the children's show.  The directors don't battle it out for the actors in Summer Rep like they might do during the academic semester.  They submit their lists and Jim Wren, who ran the Summer Rep, had final say.  Katie told me that Jim had told her earlier that day that she got all of her first cast choices.  That included me.  She wanted me to play the stable master.  I was so excited!

An hour later, the list goes up in the green room.  Guess who's not on it?  This guy!  I was very upset because I had made all of these grand plans in the last hour based on my participation in summer rep.  Luckily, I had not told anyone what Katie told me.  That would have been truly embarrassing.  However, as I made my way to a class in the Curry building, I ran into Be Boyd, one of my acting professors.  She was all excited and hugged me and told me congratulations.  When I asked her what she was congratulating me for, she said Summer Rep, of course.  I told her I wasn't in Summer Rep and she argued with me that I was.  I told her to go check out the list because I'm not on it. 

Be was pretty upset about it because at the beginning of the day, I was in Summer Rep but by the time the list was posted, I was not.  Jim had the final say in who was in the company, but I was not angry at him for changing his mind about casting me.  I'm actually thankful for it because I really needed to focus on myself that summer and my dad and also I was not right for Jim's show, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  Brandon Cardinal got my spot instead and he was definitely more appropriate for it.  Of course, I was told they decided last minute to switch it up because what had happened to me personally that year, but I knew deep down that I just wasn't right for the roles I had been up for.  Still, I was disappointed because one minute I had it, one minute I didn't. 

Counting chickens....it's not the most fun thing in the world, but something we all have to do at one time or another. Fun fun!!