Every once in a while, I find myself missing my time as a Theater Arts graduate student. In the same sense, I'm sure, that WWII veterans find themselves missing the raucous days of drinking and whoring on shore leave, but who aren't exactly itching to see their best friends get shot in the face again. In any case, I sometimes think about the fairly rarified experiences that particular life path can offer a person, and wax nostalgic. Most of all, I miss the auditions. Not auditioning, mind you. That's a horrible experience. But getting to sit on the other side.

If you ever want a feeling of raw, petty power, I *highly* recommend casting a show sometime. Maybe some of you in the working world have had the sick pleasure of interviewing people before -- letting people sum up their entire lives on a piece of paper and a ten minute "casual" conversation -- but it's nothing compared to the sick thrill of an audition.

Imagine a line of young actors and actresses, each of whom deeply and incorrectly believes that this tiny, inconsequential role is a necessary stepping stone towards their dream job in show business. They'll be seen on stage, beloved and respected, and remembered when it comes time to cast for other, bigger shows. Somehow, this scenario starts with them as a spear-bearer in Richard III, and ends with their name in lights on Broadway, or them graciously accepting an Acadamy award. Oh, they'd thank their parents, their friends, their teachers... No one tells them that maybe 1 in 100, however talented, will reach the height of their career as the gritty hooker on Law and Order who says "Oh yeah! That guy? He's a real weirdo. You should talk to Candy, she was with 'im last night." And 1 in 100 of them will make their way to "occasionally recurring character", and so on up the line.

But they're right. If they don't get the role, that could very well be where it all ends on the lottery-ladder of show business. And then they're stuck with an empty resume and a college degree in Theater Arts. A degree that doesn't help much in the Theater, let alone industries where some of the people are sober some of the time. Their life, their future career, their very soul is in the hands of the casting director. That, however, is their problem.

In your role as casting director, your job is to dismiss 95% of the auditioners in the first 5 seconds of their monologue. Not pretty enough, not tall enough, skilled but not right for the characters in this show, it's all immediately obvious. For the few who you might cast it can take a while to decide, but you know who you're not casting in a heartbeat. In professional theater, it's customary to just yell out "NEXT!" once you've determined this person isn't right for a role, and save everyone time in exchange for some personal dignity. Academics are far too polite for this, which sullies the otherwise sublime experience of casting with parades of 8 minute Neil Simon monologues.

College directors could also, in theory, save themselves some time by posting a short list of the physical traits and character types they're even considering for their show, but this would run up against some fairly delicate sensibilities. This is the dirtiest, dirtiest little secret of college theater arts productions: Despite their reliable tendencies towards political liberalism, they routinely cast roles based on gender, race, looks, age, and body type. If any of these people heard of a state-funded physics program only offering hands-on laboratory experience to "slender white men under 23" they'd explode, while it's just the sort of thing they do every time they put on a show where any of these characteristics matter.

So, you've got a lineup of dozens of actors and actresses. Mostly actresses, you sick bastard. Some have studied and practiced this craft since they were five. Others are just picking it up because they can't decide on a major, and notice that those theater types party pretty hard. The difference in acting quality is usually negligible. Your job? Pick the ones who are prettiest, funniest, and who'll be the most entertaining to work with for 4 hours a night, five nights a week, for six weeks. That one? She is too snooty! Take her away! That one, there! He makes me laugh. Keep him! Bwahahahaha!

Anyhow, I have a few particular memories of casting I feel I should share with you.

The sex bomb actress. Sometimes, a girl knows (or thinks) that she has one principal attribute to bring to the stage, and decides to really work that angle. She shows up wearing something appropriately trashy, makes eye contact with the director, and does an improvised phone-sex number that starts off "So, I know you want to fuck me..." She's occasionally right on this point, but college theater doesn't really have that sort of quid-pro-quo casting couch dynamic. (It's better to start dating the director before auditions, and one-night stands decrease your odds of being cast, to avoid awkwardness.) But since there isn't any formal memo announcing the lack of this dynamic, some actresses are understandably confused. In any case, among all the ways you can have your ego stroked, few are more bizarre than having a college freshman lick her lips at you suggestively because she's hoping you'll let her be the saucy maid in a George Bernard Shaw play.

The Emilio Estevez guys. The world is full of dozens of "Audition monologue" books. Each, in turn, has a hundred or so monologues that have one thing in common: directors have heard them so many times they'll never cast anyone lame enough to use them in an actual audition. But of these monologue books, one of them has a speech from "The Breakfast Club". In any audition there are at least three or four guys who think maybe they'd like to be an actor (or at least hang out with actresses), only they've never actually seen a play. So they pick the monologue from a movie they've seen, and it's always that stupid fucking monologue where Emilio Estevez talks about how his dad always pressured him to win at sports. You've got TO WIN! You've got to be NUMBER ONE! The first time you see it, you're just astounded that someone's doing it at all. The second time, it's humorously pathetic. After that, the sheer train-wreck delight of it all sets in. They always try to add their own personal touch to the character, and it's always exactly the same.

"Butterflies are Free." This is another one I heard a million times. I've never seen this play. I should probably at least know who wrote it, but I couldn't bring myself to care about 20th century theater when I was contemplating teaching 20th century theater, so I'm not going to start now. Anyhow, there's a play called "Butterflies are Free" and it has this painful 1970's monologue about this small-town girl named Jill who's about to marry this small-town boy named Jack, only upon realizing that they'll become "Jack and Jill" she instantly leaves him and runs off to New York City. It's coquettish and flirty, and invariably read by curly-haired would-be ingenues, desperate for their first role. This one always gave me a sick thrill, and the worse it was done, the better I liked it. It was like watching the setup dialogue for an amateur porn scene, only without the annoying sex. Like Scotch, it's a bitter, refined taste, but once you learn to appreciate the nuances, nothing else compares.

The Psycho Guy. One guy showed up, tall, gaunt, and decked out in black leather, and announced that he was reading a monologue he'd written himself. It was all about finding the guy who'd raped his fifteen year old sister and brutally murdering him in a public park. "I don't know the first thing that went through his mind when he saw me that night," he read, with feeling. "but the last thing that went through his mind was the heel of my steel toed boot." We were all a little worried: which would have the worse ramifications? Casting him? Or not casting him?

The intentionally blown audtion. Now, these are really funny. Most acting programs include a handful of elite actors who are given special attention. Special acting classes, one-on-one voice coaching, all sorts of minor perks. At UC Santa Barbara, they had a clever way of funding this special attention. Every Fall they'd admit 40-45 sophomores to their elite BFA acting program, be allotted appropriate yearly funding for this many students, and then they'd arbitrarily dismiss all but ten of them by Winter quarter. Sure, it made for a lot of weepy 19 year olds, but it paid off by allowing a fantastic student:teacher ratio for the remaining few. Anyhow, this remaining group of super-actors was, to their chagrin, required to audition for every play the school offered. Sometimes, these highly skilled actors wanted to be in one play but not another, so would be forced to flub their audition horribly. One actress showed up in a jogging suit, and off-handedly recited Ophelia's "mad" speech while cycling through half a dozen yoga poses. And the worst part? The director for our show asked to cast her anyway, not because he knew she was actually good, but because he wanted to trade her for an actor who would otherwise be cast in a different show.

And people are surprised to learn that Machiavelli started out as a playwright.

Columns by Cindy