The One (job) That Got Away part 1

Or what does it even mean for a job to change everything.

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At 29, when the world has been your playground, something starts to shift. The horizon looks more narrow than before. Especially if you’re in a business where what you look like determines how many opportunities for work you’ll have. As a cis, white, ingenue’y type, the opportunities had been skewed to my benefit. I could sense a time coming though, when my skin would catch up with my age and the favor of a youth-obsessed society would begin tilting in the other direction.

So there I was at 29, doing a world premiere play in DC to great, buzzy reviews. It was the talk of the town! People from BroadWAY were coming to see it! I was the lead and I was great (you’re allowed to say that when you’re over a decade removed). With no distractions, I let the work fill me up and empty me every night. The dream.

Shortly after we closed, word came that the play would soon be produced by a prestigious off-broadway theatre. My film career was slowly growing in Atlanta where I lived, but I’d spent the past several years off and on subletting and couch surfing in NYC. The pavement was pounded, friends, no stone unturned for any hint of an invitation to move to The City.

Photo by Andy Willis on Unsplash

Waiting to hear what this meant for me felt like having a fingernail slowly removed. Who was going with the production? Were they dropping some of us and casting known stars? Were they dropping all of us? Was this my shot? Playing this role off-broadway could be the key to all of those gates I’ve been jumping up trying to see over.

Game changer.

Word came down the pipe that there’d be a new director. Despite the original having helped brilliantly craft so much of the script, they needed someone fancier. Not a good sign. I waited. Finally, my agent called to let me know I’d been invited to audition for the upcoming production.

To say I felt entitled is fair, I suppose, if you would say that a mother feels entitled to bring up her own children. Having originated the role, I felt my DNA infused in her creation. I had birthed her and now they were going to make me prove I was worthy to raise her.

I didn’t give myself space to be pissed, just set off finding a friend to stay with and a playlist of grab-the-world-it’s-yours-for-the-taking ballads and kept my head in the game. The character in the play is a scrappy nobody who does what it takes to get ahead. Life, I was determined, would imitate art this time.

A day or two before auditions, someone on the inside passed along insight confirming my suspicions. They were looking at known celebrities whose faces would sell seats. Apart from getting my face on the cover of a magazine before my audition, they told me, this was gonna be a real long shot.

Sitting on the couch where I would sleep that night, in my friend’s one bedroom apartment (where four of us were currently staying), I dug deep. How could I get my face on/in/near a magazine? Short of gluing cut out headshots on all the newsstands close to the producers, which I determined felt more desperate than cute, I was at a loss. There’s no way I could afford a publicist, plus let’s be real, I didn’t actually know actors could hire a publicist yet. The only way to get it - the sure-fire way you can get anything you really want in America - would be to earn it.¹ Or, in my case, re-earn it. Pride would have to stay on my couch-bed. I’d leave them no other choice than to cast the Right Person. Me.

Photo by Lucas Hoang on Unsplash

Here is a parentheses that’s too big for a parentheses so it’s getting a header

I recall a conversation with the director of the DC production after his interview to continue with the show: “It was just a professional courtesy, I knew they were never gonna hire me.”

What is a professional courtesy anyway?

I’ve been given quite a few of those. Mostly in the form of meetings with big agents due to having more famous friends who vouched for me. All were cordial, looked me in the eye, answered my questions, but it was so clear they had decided before I walked in the door that they would not be signing me. I suppose the courtesy is to keep the more famous people happy, happy that they’d speak to your little friend. I remember one huge agent actually saying as much toward the end of my (very short) meeting. “Look, I don’t have space for you, this was just a courtesy because Redacted Famous Person spoke so highly of you and sort of insisted.”

I suppose brutal honesty is a form of courtesy.

Anyway, that was a different trip, different friend’s couch, same hopes, similar heartbreak.

Back to the story at hand

I recall the train ride to this audition more than the audition itself. Headphones in. Gritted teeth. Focused. Only a little nervous because truthfully I’d never felt more prepared in my life.

And then I did it. I delivered. I delivered exactly what I’d delivered 8 shows a week in front of thousands of people for several months. I embodied the character for what - by the time I walked out of the room - I knew would be the last time.

I don’t recall if there was any redirection during the audition. Maybe a little. A professional courtesy redirect. The room felt cold. Who cares. Me in the big empty space. A half dozen men sitting behind a foldable table. Outnumbered. Who cares. If they were going to take away what I had given birth to, I was going to make them struggle doing it.

Thanks for coming in, Bethany.

That was great.

It’s very nice to meet you.

Courtesies.

In the end, the role went to one of the stars of a smoking hot HBO show whose father also happens to be a famous American playwright. It was only ever a courtesy for me to sleep on that couch and listen to those songs and ride that train and walk into that cold, cold room.

I found it humiliating to talk about for a while. It was easier to lie that my hopes were never up. But what good are hopes, if not up? What good are expectations, if not great? I was crushed that it didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I wanted it, how great I might’ve been… they were never going to let me keep it. Courtesy was all I was ever going to get, not a job, certainly not that One Job.

Photo by Femke Ongena on Unsplash

I’ll never slap on happy endings to these stories, because I haven’t reached my ending yet. But the casting directors from this experience were very kind. They appreciated me nailing my audition, despite being the very least known actor walking in to read for it. So they continued to call me in for other productions and cast me at a regional theatre across the country which was a beautiful experience. I still hear from them occasionally even now, still in Atlanta.

Of course I don’t begrudge the other actor, she’s very good. The system being the way it is isn’t her fault any more than it’s my fault for not having a conspicuously industry-known name. And I can look back with admiration at a non-celebrity 29-year-old with drive, ambition, and desire despite those courteous, unmovable road blocks. It’s good to look with kindness on your past selves, you know? There’s a thrill in knowing that she stuck with it.

I can hold both gratitude for the opportunity, the connections made, the friendships with the original cast, the beautiful experience of resilience that failure can bring, and also disappointment that the system would not allow me to continue climbing whether or not I worked hard enough, manifested it, nailed it, believed it, or deserved it in any sense. This is the tension I hold.

It wasn’t the One Job I can point to that changed everything. But it was one job.

And perhaps everything inevitably changes everything, doesn’t it.

I was right, the opportunity horizon is narrower now. And I am wider and taking up more space and ready to knock down more of the enclosing walls than even that headphoned 29 year old on the train receiving courteous headpats from gatekeepers.²

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And now, your weekly bonuses…

Notable and Quotable

“Auditioning feels like my real self has been punished and sent to my room, while my pretend self is forced to make nice when there is nothing that I’ve done wrong.”

~Parker Posey, You’re On An Airplaine: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir

One Obsession Away

Wherein I share what I am obsessed with this week.

Catherine O’Hara’s Oscar after party look.

I am obsessed with basically nothing from Awards Season and the all the FYC campaigns and what the studios decide to support and the absolute nonsense behind it. However. Did you see Catherine O’Hara.

The collar, the sleeves, the confidence, the bag, the face, the mermaid tail skirt, the splatter paint of it all, the you-didn’t-even-know-that-was-me-in-Home-Alone attitude. Give me Catherine O’Hara or give me death.

Out: literally everybody else

In: Catherine O’Hara now and always

1. This is a sarcasm about America’s promise that if you work hard enough, you can earn anything you put your mind to.

2. This was part one. As of course, there are many One (Jobs) That Got Away. And there will probably be many more…