Graffiti - It's not you, It's me.

The CounterClockwise Comedy auditions were at Screenland on Wednesday night. They went great, aside from a minor panic when we showed up to a locked Screenland building at 6:30 (auditions were at 7). After some phone calls and Erik playing Macgyver we got in before people started showing up.

We had 11 people come out. Everyone was very polite, no one had problems with the space or each other and all but one was on time. (Note: if you want to get cast, hired, a second date, etc… be on time.) We all tried really hard to construct an environment where it was easy to perform a good improv audition, and I think we succeeded. It was fun, we saw some good improv and there were big laughs. Meeting all the new people was great, as well.

And that’s the trouble with good auditions: deserving people will get cut.

We’re only taking one person. That means there will be 10 people we say “no” to and half of them don’t deserve to hear that. They had a good audition, but it just doesn’t matter, and that’s hard. When Erik, Ashley, Bess and I were discussing the players after the audition, it was obvious that it was going to be a tough decision- it was a good audition.

This is definitely a high quality problem; it could be worse. (We could have had no one show up.) The first improv audition I did, I was one of two people who showed up. (And I’d ridden there with the other one. We were friends and decided to audition together since performance improvisation is, by nature, terrifying.) It was in the basement of a bar and it was just us and a few supporting players from the troupe. kinda weird, but I had a lot of fun and we both got cast. That scenario was definitely something I was afraid of when we decided to do open auditions.

Anyway, we had a good turnout and we’re left with tough choices to make, which is where I wanted to be afterward. I just wish we could take 3 or maybe even more, but we can’t. The good news is, there’s a ton of troupes in town as well as satellite activities like Improv Thunderdome & the weekly Improv Gym and now I know for sure that there is a lot of talent out there to support them.

We should be contacting everyone one way or the other within the next week or so. To those who came out, thanks for giving us your time. It was a lot of fun and I think we’re going to end up with a great new cast member because of it. Stay tuned for further developments…