So when I get a call to go to an audition my attitude is so “good” I ignore all the usual warning signs. I am so into “getting out there” that I let it go that the audition is in an apartment building. Never a good sign. If they can’t fork over fifteen bucks an hours for a studio, fuck them. And when I ask, I am told, “Oh there are no sides. We are going to improvise.” Hmmmm. Again questionable.

But the new positive Cranky is looking on the bright side and ignores all this. The new positive Cranky is giving everybody the benefit of a doubt. The new positive Cranky says; “Sure!”   And I head uptown to 15 Central Park West for the audition.

Probably the fancy address helped to quell my fears. The presence of that many doormen somehow makes the possibility that I am going to see a psycho killer at home highly unlikely.

When I get there I CANNOT believe the lobby. It has a pre-war feeling and pre-war dimensions, and yet it is new. I ask the doorman about it and he tells me the building cost one billion dollars to build. “They used the same stone that was used to build the Empire State Building. They wanted a building that would fit in with the rest of Central Park West. Not like that ugly glass building next store that Trump built.” Its true this building is elegant. The Trump one next door doesn’t cut it. But if you‘ve ever watched “The Apprentice” and seen the inside of Donald Trump’s apartment, this is understandable. He has terrible taste the poor thing. I think his home décor style is called “Early Hotel Lobby.”

So I enjoy the walk through the lobby. I pass through the corridor that goes through the walled formal gardens. I go up on a spotless elevator. What the hell kind of independent filmmaker lives here? I wonder. What kind? The rich kid who lives with their parents kind.

I find this out when I enter the room.  It is a conference room that is available to tenants. I have to ask who lives here. “Oh, me and my parents,” answers the director.

So she explains the film to me. In it a woman gets followed home by some guy who then pushes her in the door and shoots her. I now realize I never got a script BECAUSE THERE IS NONE. She’s gonna improvise the entire film. I am not hot on that. You can usually tell by the quality of the dialogue when it is all improvised. And as a writer I always think things would be better if somebody wrote something.

So there is no script. The director then says we are going to improvise. She wants me to walk around the room like someone is following me.  Huh?  Walk around the room?  At this point I’m sure she must realize what I am thinking because I am absolutely sure I have a self-diagnosed condition called FACIAL EXPRESSION TURRETS. I can’t help myself really. Every emotion just passes over my face without me having a say in it. It is great for acting, but sucky in life.

This is when I need a strategy to get myself out of the room. A sure fire way to get out of there. But I AM STUCK IN THE AUDITION AND I CAN’T GET OUT. I may need a “Lifeline” device to hang around my neck with a button I can press to summon help.

She wants me to walk around the room? Which basically means circling the fucking conference table whilst looking over my shoulder. I mean you expect this kind of retarded shit at a commercial audition, but at one for a film?  No.

But I can’t get out of the room, so I do it. I avoid making any expression at all. I am not gonna do the Laura Dern in ”Jurassic Park” look. I feel like an idiot. I am circling a table. At one point I stop as if I am at a traffic light. My method training is surfacing willy-nilly. When I finish she says, “Oh, we didn’t want you to stop. WOULD YOU MIND DOING IT AGAIN?” Please Dear God Please God get me out of here. So again I am circling circling.

The feast de resistance comes when she tells me to now make believe that I open the door, some guy pushes me in, and then he shoots me. The only thing is, THERE IS NO GUY. Do I look like frigging Marcel Marceau? Can I push myself through a doorway? Can I shoot myself?

That’s it. So I look at the assistant director and ask if he can be the guy who pushes me in the door and shoots me. He looks real embarrassed. He’s embarrassed? I just circled a conference table for ten minutes!

They look at me like I’ve got some balls. When in reality, if I had balls I would have left fifteen minutes ago.

He blushes through the whole thing, which makes me superbly happy.

When I leave, I sit in the beautiful garden with the fountain that so looks like the afterlife. It is quiet there. Not an idiot in sight. I regain my composure. I decide to walk across Central Park even though there is a light drizzle. Again, I am alone. With the trees. With the plants. It is very quiet. I feel all right. I know Cranky will live to act another day.

So I will pick up life after the great hard drive crash of 2010. A little story that is so embarrassing I told my friend that I was too embarrassed to blog about it. “But your blog is anonymous!” she said. “I know,” I answered, “and I’m still too embarrassed to write about it.”

It all started when I got my computer back up and running and received three thousand emails at once. I did my best to weed through all the Smart Bargains and horoscope messages and find anything I needed to know.

I came across one with the subject: Audition. “Audition! I thought, “Audition? When? Thursday. Thursday? TODAY is Thursday!” I gulped my tea down and ran to get dressed. I stared into my closet in a daze trying to figure out what to wear. I came up with a salmon colored cardigan over a white shirt and a pair of jeans and beige flats. I felt smart. I felt springy. I ran to the subway with a smart spring in my step. The F train takes forever. All the trains are going in the other direction. COME ON! COME ON! I decide that if I am late I will not apologize for being late because it only calls attention to the fact that you are late. Finally a train comes and I jump on the last car, which I know will let me off by the First Avenue staircase.

At the station I bound up the staircase and run down the street. I find the address. There are three doors into the theater building. I try the first one-it is locked. The second – the same. The third – ah also locked. Huh? I go back and try the first. The second. The third. “How late am I?” I think. So I look at the printed email. Oh yes I am late. A WEEK LATE. The audition was LAST THURSDAY. The smart the spring? They’re all gone. I imagine someone from the theater seeing me and thinking that I am a mental case.

I need a cappuccino ASAP. I find a nice place that allows dogs, (only in the East Village) and I pet every dog that walks in for therapy.   It’s the best place to people watch. I realize the East Village is one of the only places in the world with octogenarian hipsters. My favorite of the day is the man with the grey ponytail who walks in with a cane covered in a mosaic of little mirrors.

The benches in front of the café are lined with people looking like a row of pigeons catching the sun.

Another octogenarian hipster comes in. He has the de rigueur grey ponytail. He is wearing faded overalls and a knit cap. He has an athletic physique. His body has an alertness, a quickness. I picture him standing and working on big canvasses. He does not go to the counter. He goes straight to a table and whips out a thermos of coffee and a book. A THERMOS. He’s not buying nothing. And because this is the East Village and he probably goes there every day, nobody says nothing. It’s so nice to be off the capitalist grid for a moment. I feel better now. At the rate I am going it’s nice to know there is a possibility of being an interesting octogenarian. Going to auditions a week late is not going to make any big success out of me any time soon. I should start collecting the requisite turquoise jewelry now.

Well… she is half Cocker Spaniel and half Yorkshire Terrier. So willful meets hyper. Or cranky meets crazy (how fitting).

I knew there was terrier in there. How did I know? Maybe by hours and hours of this:

So basically she has all the mischievousness of a terrier and the strength of a cocker to carry out her nefarious plans.

They are called Corkies. She is the one in ten with the sporting coat and extra poundage. The better to pull by. The average Corkie is 12 pounds – but the one in ten sporting variety is 20.

Or maybe by the fact that her best friend is a Jack Russell called Margot and they have the EXACT same behavior.  Here they are.  They were in the middle of playing when they spotted another dog coming down the street:

She is crazy crazy. But she is a love. In her reflective moments she gets up on the back of the couch and sits behind me with her head on my shoulder. Who could resist that?

If you have a sensitive stomach stop reading now. Because this week she had truly explosive diarrhea. Like a fire hose was shooting out of her butt hole. I didn’t know it was possible for fecal matter to travel that far down the block out of a dog’s anus.

So we went directly to the fancy vet in DUMBO. And as soon as we left the office after paying two hundred and seventy five dollars she went directly across the street and did a perfectly normal poopie.

Thanks Lu! And she hadn’t even taken ONE of the expensive antibiotic pills yet. Yes, I spent two hundred and seventy five dollars in twenty minutes on a condition that apparently didn’t exist anymore.

Glad I took some free biscuits.

I have never seen anything like it. What the hell. Mass quantities of oozing mass were coming out of the eyeball. “Does it look bad?” asked my husband. “No, not really,” I said, it’s just pink eye, you’ll be OK,” said like a good spouse who doesn’t want her husband to freak out. What I thought was; “OH MY GOD OH MY GOD THAT IS HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE EEEEEEEW!”

Then a few days later I was walking down Varick Street. I was trying to walk and text at the same time. Cranky is the world’s worst texter. I have turned down the blackberry many times. I don’t want my emails following me around. So I have a little clamshell phone with a little teeny keypad. You know: abc def efg – tap tap – tap – tap tap tap – like Morse code for each letter. So I am trying to text and walk and unfortunately it was tap tap tap tap take one step, tap tap take another, tap tap tap another step, when a homeless man yells out; “ Hey honey! Why don’t you do like the kids do, they can text and drive at the same time!” Thank you. Thank you Mr. Homeless Man. How many insults can you fit into one sentence? But he was right. And like an urban Cassandra, he was hinting at more technological trouble to come. I went home that night and my hard drive crashed.

I spent a week humming the tune to the song by Tom Adair and Matt Dennis - “Everything Happens To Me”:

Black cats creep across my path
Until I’m almost mad
I must have roused the devils wrath
’cause all my luck is bad

I make a date for golf – and you can bet your life it rains.
I try to give a party – but the guy upstairs complains.
I guess I’ll go thru life just catching colds and missing trains….

EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME

I went to a tech place and bought a new one. Then Apple told me they would have given me one for free. Then I got everything up and running and I sent myself an email and there was a cathead icon on it. Then I checked on all the emails I had sent that day and they all had the cathead on them. I had sent the cathead to my best friend, a prospective employer and a casting agent. The cathead was ruining my life. I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. Every email looked like it was sent by a housewife from Suffolk County. One who smokes and wears sweatshirts with pictures of cats on them. Whose house is full of knick-knacks. And a crochet covers on all the tissue boxes. And a vinyl tablecloth. With cigarette burns. And I think there might be a moldy smell everywhere. The cathead is giving me an identity crisis.

At the height of the cathead plague my doorbell rings. “Who the hell is this?” I think. I think people should call first. I open the door and it is the Super’s daughter. She is nine. She is what J.D. Salinger would call “roller skate skinny”. When she returned from a family vacation in Mexico (my superintendent lives better than I do) she ran up to me with the smallest shell you’ve ever seen and put it in my hand and said, “I brought this back just for you.” She is a character.

So she is standing at my door and says, “I wanted to talk to you some more about the garden.” (A neighbor and I are collecting money to buy flowers to replenish the sad, pathetic little gardens in front of our building.)

I tell her to come in.

“So, I wanted to talk some more about the garden. I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about the garden and maybe we should have some vegetables. Not all vegetables but just a part of it vegetables. And then we could set up a table on the sidewalk like they do on Halloween and we could give the vegetables away. And oh, um, my birthday is on Friday and by then I’ll have like a hundred and fifty dollars and that’s more money than I could ever spend in my life so I was thinking could I give you a hundred and fifty dollars towards flowers?”

I know right then that the plague is over. The world is good. A nine year old wants to donate all her money because she loves gardens. Spring is coming. My faith is renewed. Even the cathead can’t get me down.

I discovered J.D. Salinger when I stole “Catcher In The Rye” from my big sister and read it. I tried to hand in a book report on it in seventh grade and it was rejected because it was on a list of unsuitable books or something. It was Westchester after all. They told my mother I was reading unsuitable books, but really she could care less.

So one Sunday when I was making the usual stop after church with father no. 2 to pick up the Sunday paper at Lippy’s, the candy/toy/comic book/book store, I checked under S and found more books by this Salinger guy. I saved my allowance and eventually got to buy all three.

I took them with me when I had to go to Massachusetts to visit the first father and his second wife, the redheaded stepmother. It was horrible there. The only saving grace was that they had a dog who I spent all my time with. Laddy. Laddy, the bright light of the long summer with the evil stepmother.

The stepmother who hated me.

And the first father, who tried to make up for everything by buying me things which we had to hide in the trunk of his car until I left because evil stepmother would be furious if she knew. The first father, who was tragically handsome but could never get the family thing right. He really wanted a wife and kids and a dog he really did, he just didn’t know how to do it. His mother was a divorced chorus girl who went back on the road and left her boys with various uncaring unkind relatives. So he didn’t know how the family thing was supposed to work or something I guess.

I will never forget the long boring summer in the town of one-story houses. The baking heat with not a tree in sight. Flat. Hot.

The stepmother who couldn’t clean or cook. She specialized in flirting with other people’s husbands. And watching T.V. The minute the father put the key in the ignition to head off for work, the kids were thrown in the backyard and the shades went down and the television was switched on. The house smelled weird, which really depressed me.

So it was into this landscape that I brought J.D. Salinger. I remember sitting outside reading one of his books and feeling the deepest resonating joy. He picked out the stuff of life that was funny and sad-making at the same time. I had escaped the land of the stepmother in my mind. I could think different, be different and rise above the finks. I was learning, like Lydgate in “Middlemarch” by George Eliot, “… that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.”

My whole persona at the time was influenced by Salinger. When a beau told me that when I talked I sounded like “New Yorker” magazine I was thrilled.

I hope there is a closet full of manuscripts in his house and they all get published. Because I MEAN REALLY it has been AGES since I stopped hunting for more of his books under S at Lippy’s. I kept checking for a long time until somebody tipped me off that no more of them were ever gonna come. Ever. Which was sad-making and all. So I salute you my literary Big Daddy. And hope everything gets published because the phony reviewers can’t bother you now.

So, I had planned out my day the day before. I figured I had just enough time to take my weekly African Dance class with the live drummer– which is one of my favorite things in the world. I was raving about it to a musician friend of mine recently who responded with; “Oh really? What region of Africa?” To which I responded; “The Alvin Ailey region I think.”

But I digress. So I had it all planned out.

But, when I woke up this morning the alarm clock said 7:45 – plenty of time to walk the dog, have a cup of tea, some raisin toast and a sit down to polish up the monologue they sent me, and go to class and make the audition. However upon entering the kitchen I learned it was actually 10:00 am and the battery on my alarm clock had died. NOOOOOO.

So no time for anything. Must walk dog. Must feed dog. Trying to get ready with a dog clamped on to my left foot. No time to discipline dog. My husband says this is why he is Alpha dog and I am not. I try throwing a toy in between putting on eyeliner. I try to throw it far enough to finish one eye. She’s back. Throw it again. She’s back. Again, back, again, back, again, back. I am sure as shit this dog is a terrier. I never wanted a terrier. But I love her now so it is too late. I get up to go to the closet and she latches on to my foot again so I have to drag her into the living room to get the silver coasters off the cocktail table. The silver coasters are the only thing that will stop her when she is in clamping mode. I have to clang them together. Repeatedly. My husband thinks I am a moron because being Alpha dog he only has to look at her.

After coaster alert I forgot exactly where I was headed in the first place.

I finally get out the door and when I am two blocks away I realize I forgot to put the monologue I was going to brush up in my purse. Too late to go back. Run down the stairs to the A train. NO A OR C TRAINS RUNNING AT THIS STATION says the magic marker sign. Fucking weekends fucking track work. So I run to the 2,3 three blocks away. Asking myself seriously if this is worth it. When I get there there are 10 people staring at an elevator with open doors that isn’t moving. Finally the other elevator comes.

I get on the train and I swear I am seated across from an actress preparing a monologue. I’m not kidding. She knows hers by heart. She obviously doesn’t have a terrier puppy. It starts annoying me. I want to close my eyes and meditate for a minute but I can’t look away. She is mouthing the words complete with much eyebrow raising and crazy intense looks and jutting of the lower teeth out of her mouth. And darting looks back and forth. I swear. The head- back and forth and back and forth. And now a crazy look. And now a pumping of the eyebrows. I look at a folder she is carrying and read the word “Shakespeare” upside down. Ah hah! She is doing bombastic Shakespeare on the 2 train. It is so fucking annoying to me that I can’t stop looking. And why is no one else noticing I wonder? Until a Hispanic guy with headphones gets on the train and sits down next to her. He notices the bizarre behavior. So he looks her up and down very carefully to figure out if she is a crazy homeless. When he decides she isn’t he sits back and returns to Ipod world. Fine. Fine. Leave Cranky alone in her annoyance. It’s so great to be annoyed with some one else. It’s one of those days. Everything is annoying me. When a man hits me with his Toy Are Us bag and an entire third grade class on a field trip gets on the car, I am so sorry I didn’t stay home.

I make it to the audition with ten minutes to spare. When I go in I ask if they have a copy of the monologue and they say, “No but someone left one by accident on the chair.” I realize yes I should have stayed home. And after I do the monologue and they hand me sides and ask me to read a scene I’ve never seen before with no preparation I am mentally kicking myself for skipping brunch with my husband and friends. And to rub it in, they have an actress there who has a part in the film read with me and she sits in a chair on my upstage left side, so I have a choice of relating to her and having the back of my head to the camera or having my face to the camera and looking like I don’t know how to act. But does it really matter anymore?

When I go to take the same train back there are no trains running at that station so I have to walk eight blocks weaving my way through slow walking lumbering tourists who are walking four across on the sidewalk. Times Square on a Saturday – thanks again screwy filmmaker.  The city needs to implement my idea of tourist walking lanes on the sidewalk. When I finally get to the platform the doors of the car close in my face.

But I’m home now. I’m on the couch. The doggie is on the back of the couch looking out the window her arm resting in what I call “Statesman Pose”. All is quiet and contentment now.

She does seem like terrier but I’m also sure she has a lot of poodle. Every dog now is crossed with a poodle. There are Cockapoos, Jackadoodles, Dachapoos, Labradoodles. Someday the poodles will take over the world. People will start having their offspring crossed with them. “What are you having? A boy or a girl?” we will ask. Oh, I’m having a Boydoodle. They are completely hypoallergenic and smarter than the average boy.”

These are the questions I’ve been asking myself. Then I got an audition.
And I missed it. Why? Because my entire life is about peepee and poopie. Cranky has gone to the dogs.

A new dog takes over your entire life. Mentally and physically. Shampoo the carpet five times a day? No problem. Walk around for an hour in the rain so the dog can go home and directly pee on the carpet? An everyday occurrence. Follow the dog’s every move to see what she wants to shred now? I’m there. Clean up mounds of shredded dirty tissues, cardboard toilet paper rolls, paper towels? OK. Tug on the tug toy obsessively for hours? I have time for that. Watch as she tears my bedspread to shreds? Yes – she looks so cute doing it.

But remember and appointment? I would have to stop paying attention to the dog for five minutes to figure that one out.

Recently she has started chasing her tail which made me really nervous because I’m afraid that might be a sign of doggie mental illness and that runs in my family and believe me it is not pretty. That must be curtailed immediately.

So on the audition day I was so busy with the dog I didn’t check my calendar until five in the afternoon. The audition was at 11am. Whoops. I called the casting director to explain that my entire life was about peepee and poopie and that I was really sorry. Guess I didn’t make a good impression.

When I answer the phone now I say, “HELLO SHREDOMATIC INCORPORATED.” If I could figure out how to turn this into a money making enterprise that would be great. Stuffing for throw pillows? Because times are tough. When we brought the dog home I looked her in the eye and said, “ Listen dog. We have nothing. But we are willing to share our nothing with you.” To which she turned around and ran gaily through the apartment, her ears flapping in the breeze, looking for the nearest dirty tissue to shred.

It seemed highly impractical to adopt a dog at this time. But a little silly in your life is always a good thing. Take a leap of faith they say and the universe will follow.

Every time I walk her people ask; “What kind of dog is that?” Over and over. “What kind of dog is that?” “What kind of dog is that?” Ah…a black dog? She’s a rescue, so nobody knows. But everyone has an opinion. The vet: “Oh, she’s a dachapoo.” The man on the sixth floor; “Definitely a spaniel and a dachshund.” My husband, “Look at her. She a Petite Bassett Vendoodle.” Huh?

I can’t take it anymore, so I actually ordered a doggie DNA kit. Which is ironic because Cranky has never been 100% sure about which guy her father is. (So typical that an actor would come from some questionable parental situation, huh?  Are fucked up families like actor factories?) I’ve always been too spooked to do the DNA thing for myself but I will soon know the exact lineage of my dog.

Actually I’m very excited about it. I can’t wait to give her the cheek swab test and send it in. If it works well maybe it will inspire me to finally resolve my family questions myself. It all started when my brother told a story about going to a restaurant with my mother and stepfather when he was three. Three? He was six when I was born. My mother was still married to my supposed father. Hmmmmm. I asked how this could be and everyone got real quiet. Like weird quiet. I never realized until this moment how very Jerry Springer my life is. You would never know it to meet me. I think. I hope.

So maybe the dog will inspire me to do the test. Because it is a scary thing. My stepfather raised me and I loved him more than life. So if he is my real Dad I will be thrilled. Plus, then I will be only half related to the crazy relatives and wouldn’t that be wonderful? But if step dad isn’t my real dad I will cry for two days and do I really need that? But then I will have more material to draw on for future emotional substitutions.

So one step at a time. I’ll start with the doggie DNA and if that turns out good, like if she’s not a Yorkie and a Cocker which means Yappy and Snappy got together and had a puppy, or a Pit Bull and Lhasa Apso or some fucked up thing, maybe I’ll be brave and try it for myself.

So, good to know. The Onion News Network will give you another chance even if you are apparently totally retarded. So even though I was totally mortified and all it was no biggy in their minds. Which is probably the case in 99% of all life experiences for an actor. You could die and other people are like’ “Huh?”

This coincided with my husband and I fostering a dog. A pretty neurotic dog. Especially at first, and they called me on day three of dog fostering. All I could think about was whether or not the dog had gone poopy yet. Really nothing else mattered. Leave it to Cranky to get an anal retentive dog. “Please poop. Please poop. Please poop.” Was all I kept thinking as we walked around the neighborhood. If she finally pooped, I was gonna have a party. A party with a cake. A log roll cake with candles.

So I was obsessed with rescue dog and her pooping problems and everything else dimmed by comparison. So I never did get around to looking at the script. I never got around to washing my hair.

The morning of the audition I took foster dog to the vet across the street. She gave the dog a suppository. “I hope you have time to walk her around. You don’t want an explosion in the house,” the vet said.

I was supposed to be getting ready for the audition, but instead was circling endlessly around the neighborhood with little Miss Anal Retentive waiting for the poopy explosion. The poopy explosion that never happened. It was time to get dressed. No poopy. It was time to leave. No poopy. The audition is in ten minutes. No poopy.

I finally gave up and ran upstairs and threw clothes on and ran to the train. Thinking I could at least study the script on the train. Which I could have done really. If I had remembered the script. Oh well.

So I get there. And the elevator is broken. I have to walk up ten floors of stairs in sling back heels. I tell myself, “Just imagine it is two five floor walk-ups.” I once actually lived in a seven-floor walk-up. But that is another story. I still have nightmares about that apartment.

I finally reach floor ten. I am sweating. I am panting. I am late. I don’t know a word of the sides. And really, I am totally unconcerned. I am thinking, “You all think this is important? Rescue dog needs to poop. I just want to get this over with and go home and check on the poopy situation.”

So I grab a script. I learn the script. I give a great audition.

It was a case of Rescue Dog to the rescue.

I get a callback. I screwed up every way you can screw up an audition and I get a callback. Why? Because I DIDN’T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. No self-sabotage was happening. I was not freaked out about being late/sweaty/unprepared.

Thank you rescue dog. Thank you for the Zen life lesson. And thank you for finally pooping.

“From: Adam Drysin
Subject: Penny Dreadful Audition
Date: Oct 16, 2009, at 7:35 PM EDT

Hi everyone, thank you all so much for your enthusiastic response! Due to the sheer volume of actors interested (over 150 of you have already confirmed), I’ll have to send out a mass email.”

Dopey dopier dopiest – like I care how many people responded? Is there a difference between a laconic response and an enthusiastic one? Can you feel a vibe when you look at a submission-”Hmmmm this feels enthusiastic!”  Seriously?  If you asked any of the sheer volume of actors if they were enthusiastic about your project the most common answer would probably be; “Ah I dunno.  The guy sounds kind of lamo but I’m not doing anything else,  so what the hell.”

“Unfortunately, if you are unable to make it between 2 and 6 on this upcoming WEDS 10/21 I am currently unable to accommodate you. However, I will be looking to schedule a make up date in the coming weeks.”

Huh? So you WILL be able to accommodate me?

“If you have responded that you would like to come on Wednesday at a specific time, be assured that I have made a note of it and you will be seen before you have to leave.”

But not when you ARRIVE at your chosen time?

“Your presence is not unappreciated and everyone who comes to audition will be seen. I only ask that you be patient, since I am pretty much putting this whole thing together by myself.”

And I should care why? Thanks for warning me that you’re unprofessional and have no friends.

“Attached you’ll find a side to prepare- it’s a scene from David Mamet’s play Boston Marriage. I find I have the best results with casting calls when actors reading material I haven’t written.”

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP WARNING WARNING IDIOT ALERT IDIOT ALERT

“Looking forward to meeting you all, don’t hesitate to call or email me with any questions.

Adam Drysin

P.S. ALSO, please watch this video, it will give you a good sense of I do auditions…

(just kidding, but you should all watch it anyway because it’s great)”

Appropriate for facebook but for a casting email? Not so much.

OK, so after reading this email Cranky should have known better. Cranky should have skipped it. I shoulda stayed home. But no, Cranky went anyway. This is when I could use the actor HOTLINE.  I needed someone to tell me; “JUST SAY NO!”  But I went.   And of course it was a big mess. A green room full of actors where no one left. The NO EXIT of audition rooms.

So Cranky and another actress took matters into their own hands – we had a minor rebellion. We were free. For all I know those actors are still in there. Waiting waiting.

The story of what we found is in the email below that I wrote to Mr. Drysin the moment I got home.

“From: crankyactress
Subject: PENNY DREADFUL AUDITION – ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL
Date: October 21, 2009 5:40:19 PM EDT
To: adamdrysin@nyu.edu

Dear Adam -

I unfortunately attended the ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL PENNY DREADFUL AUDITION and waited and waited. I had to listen to two actresses talking to each other across the room about how they flushed their cell phone down the toilet and why they only did one year of the two-year conservatory program they were in. One of the stories involving bronchitis and mononucleosis and how she was told not to attend school with bronchitis but if she didn’t attend she would fail. Why why why do boring loud people always talk to each other ACROSS the room? So thanks for that Adam. I have a million things to do but I traveled to the village to sit in a plastic chair and listen to drivel.

There were ten actors waiting to be seen for your project. When another actress and I realized that the monitor had not called any one in for over fifteen minutes we decided we needed to figure out WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON. So we left the green room and searched the halls until we found the audition room. There was music coming from inside. We were not auditioning for a musical. We knocked on the door. There you and the monitor were. Listening to music. Having snacks.

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

When we asked, you said, “Ah, um, ah we were changing the tape.” In a video camera. Which takes all of two minutes. There is a myth that actors are stupid. You obviously believe this MYTH. So by then, with ten actors there and each audition taking approximately five minutes each, I would have had to wait about an hour. Nice.

You said you had a “big turnout”. The amount of actors who responded is of no concern to me. If you choose to audition 150 actors for a short film I suggest you figure out an organized way to do it or maybe narrow it down by half. Asking 150 actors to come between 2 and 6 is preposterous.

So bye bye Adam. We left.

If you can’t organize an audition what is your film set gonna be like? Time management is a huge part of being a good director. I know because I’ve worked with a lot of them. A lot of talented EXPERIENCED people who would never THINK of treating other people this way. I’ve heard NYU costs like 40,000 bucks a year. I suggest you take this money and open a small business and get someone organized to run it. You obviously have no respect for actors. And good actors are gonna walk away.

I have been in the First Run Festival. I’ve been in films that have been in festivals all over the world. I do my work. I prepare. I’m on time. I fix my fucking hair and put on makeup. I take my work seriously. I am continually working on my craft.

Do I wanna work with a JOKER? The answer would be no.

From,

AN ACTRESS WHO JUST WASTED A PART OF HER DAY”

I’m going because my husband has to go and I am keeping him company.

When he first asked me I said I didn’t wanna go. Then he convinced me that it would be nice for him and all so I said I would go. Then the date got closer and I realized I would actually have to get on a plane and stay in a hotel and leave my home. So I told my husband I didn’t want to go. I started running around the house petting the walls to express how I felt. “I LOVE HOME. HOME GOOD. HOME NICE. STAY HOME. CRANKY LOVE HOME!” All this while petting the walls of our apartment and hugging the doorjamb to the kitchen. “But you said you would go and I bought you a ticket!” he said.  “Oh” I said. So I once again agreed to go. Then a few days later I was tense and whiny on the phone about everything I had to do before we go and my husband said, “You still want to go don’t you?” “I already said I would go. I’m going,” I said. Then I hung up the phone and thought, “Wait a minute. That sounded suspicious. Is he trying to make me stay home? Does he want to go alone? Does he want to get away from me? Is he trying to make me say I won’t go?”  So I called him up and asked him why he didn’t want me to go. “I do I do I want you to go,” he said. “I thought you didn’t want me to go. Why did you ask me if I still wanted to go when I already said I would go?”  I said.   And on and on…

These are the times I feel a little sorry for my husband that he married an actress. I think the definition of the above interchange is called histrionics or herstrionics as the case may be. But I feel sorry for him only rarely. Because being a homebody/home lover also means I cook and decorate. Any magazine wants to stop by and take some pictures of my apartment I’m ready anytime. I single handedly keep Swifter in business. We have summer curtains, winter curtains, summer throw pillows, winter throw pillows and a summer slipcover for the couch. I just switched everything. How could I leave now?

My husband found this French movie, “I Married An Actress”. He got this funny look on his face when he told me about it. Like he’s discovered some support group he’d been searching for all his life. Like he wasn’t the only one. Like Ah-Hah See!! Actress/wives are a handful. We watched it and all her crying in the rain and running out of the house seemed pretty normal to me, and oddly enough her husband was a cerebral type just like mine. The type that needs herstrionics to keep him in touch with his emotional side. To make sure he remembers there is an emotional side to life. Which is what good art theater can do I think and maybe a good actress/wife.

Recently my husband got mad at me. I was being crazy hyper about getting somewhere on time. I was like pushing him down the street. (He has only one speed.) And he got mad at me. So I apologized. “I’m sorry”, I said. “Do you forgive me?” “Not yet”, he said. “Well, when are you going to forgive me?” I said. He answered, “I’ll forgive you after I’ve seen a pattern of normalcy.” Good luck with that.