A Quiet Night at Home: it's about to get real Bare

This is gonna get real weird and uncomfortably emotional so I'd just skip this post if you're not into that kind of thing. Of course, come right on in if you're all about that gross uncomfortable emotional shit.


So, as I mentioned in my last post, I auditioned for a musical at a university and got cast in it, and completely swept away by everyone in it. I mean, I haven't set foot on a stage (not counting with my grandmother) in about 3-4 years--I honestly can't remember exactly how long it's been. Back in Vancouver, theatre became one of my biggest tormentors, a constant reminder that I would never have the time or the money to devote myself to the things I loved doing so much. I gave it up because it was too painful to keep spending all this time on auditions when I knew I needed training and had no time or means to get it.

In short, I gave it up because I was too tired, and too fragile, and most importantly: just a bit too weak to continue.

Anyone who's known me the last few years knows I've been doing backstage tech/managing and taking vocal lessons on the side, idly clinging to a life I once imagined would take centre stage for me. I quietly finished my degree, sang at the convocation, and told myself that acting would simply be one of those hobbies I grew out of, something I didn't bring into my adult life because it didn't fit.

Anyone who's known me well for the last decade would tell you that was the dumbest thing I could have tried to do.

To transition from 'that girl who is always singing' to... well, I guess, just an 'angry retail worker' made me feel completely devoid of personality. On the plus side, it forced me to discover different parts of my personality that I had stashed away in favour of being the quintessential theatre kid-- I remembered I was a writer, a good sister, a good friend. I focused all of my energy outward and tried to fill all the gaps in my life that giving up performing had left. I talked about how I 'used to' perform like I was an old cabaret singer smoking a pack of cigarettes outside a bar, reliving her glory days before it closed down.

I had no grand plans or ideas when I moved to Sydney just five (has it only been five?) months ago. I knew that all of these anxieties and idiosyncrasies would not disappear the minute I stepped foot on foreign soil, and did not have any dumb notions that I would suddenly have an Eat Pray Love moment and figure out what to do with my life. The only thing I knew was that Vancouver was starting to feel a bit like a sweater for a bit too long and perhaps it was time to put it away and try on a new one.

The one gift being in a new country, a new city, gave to me, was that I had a chance to completely rebuild the narrative surrounding my life. And one night I decided I was going to just... look at auditions around Sydney. I didn't think I would get any, didn't even really know what the theatre culture here was, but I just decided to take a look. Booking an audition for 'bare: a pop opera' was the single weirdest thing I had done since I'd been here--and I've made a lot of hilariously bad (mostly drunk) decisions already. I auditioned, got a call-back (the single worst call-back I have ever had in my life), and when I got offered the role I asked the director if she was serious because I had been at my audition too and I would not have cast me.

In short, everything you shouldn't say to someone trying to cast you in their show. By some freak accident I found myself surrounded by a cast of talented people, trying desperately to follow the ribbons from Vancouver to where I was now. It came so effortlessly I started to believe that I was the person they thought I was, until one day I realised that I was that person because I'd never stopped being her.

I want to tell you this is some grand return to theatre for me, some amazing announcement that I've decided to go to acting school like I always wanted or quit life and join a travelling stage group, but in reality, I don't even know if I have time in my life for it right now. And I don't even know what I'll be doing in seven months, apart from going back to Canada and starting from scratch. 

In the meantime, I don't think I'll ever forget the people I met during this weird two month journey, and god only knows my emotionally-attached-yet-distant-ass won't let them stop being my friend. 

Maybe the stars will align again and I'll find another audition that seems to pull at me the way this one did, and maybe someone else will take a chance on me, and other people after that, but I can confidently say I think we all knew I would never leave for too long.

It's a bit hard to leave the stage when it follows you to another continent, no?

à bientôt!