The first rehearsal was at the directors apartment on the Upper Westside. The replacements were going to get just 4 rehearsals than go on this coming weekend. The whole cast was there, us replacements and the cast members that were still with the show. When I arrived the regular cast members seemed to be huddled in a corner checking us replacements out and talking under their breath. I was tempted to say" you got a problem" but Theresa, from the first audition was there and greeted me warmly and I felt better.
The rehearsal went well,I thought,the director was just running through our scenes and the only time he gave any direction was to tell us where to enter from and where to go, they call that blocking. We rehearsed that way for the next couple of days and the regular cast members warmed up to us replacements, they had no choice I guess, like us or not , we were going to be on stage together.
The final rehearsal was at the theater and I was ready. I had gone over my scenes at every spare moment and had the lines down cold. I waited backstage for my turn to enter. When that time came I walked out and the first thing I noticed were the seats, about 80, starring at me.My knees became weak and my mouth dry as the reality hit me that I was going to perform on stage to an audience that paid money to see the show. Who do I think I am? I don't belong here and the impulse hit me to leave, take the subway back to Queens and forget about all this. The director broke me out of my trance by telling me to pick up the pace on my entrance. I was able to focus and the rest of the rehearsal was uneventful.
The day came, a Friday, and I was going on that night. I spent the day going over my lines so much that I knew them as well as my social security number. I had friends coming that night and my biggest fear was to forget my lines and look like a complete fool in front of everybody.
Waiting backstage a few minutes before the curtain time, the irony hit me of doing a play before I had ever seen one. There was a great piano player performing the intro to the show and at the moment I felt proud.There were several friends of mine in the audience including Doris and an old friend I knew for most of my life, Bo. If anyone should have been an actor it was him. Tall, good looking and athletic, the ladies loved this guy. He would go into a bar and pull some girls pony tail from behind and she would turn around angry , ready to tear into who ever did that. As soon as she would see Bo, she would smile and melt.
When it was my time to enter for the first time, I felt the adrenalin surging through my veins and I went out there on fire. The audience seemed to enjoy the scene and would laugh at the right time. But they were polite laughs, not the spontaneous gut laughs that a great comedienne gets.
The important lesson I learned from this experience was not to push for laughs from the audience.I had some funny lines and I would punch them out, subconscious pleading for laughs . They did laugh but they were polite. I would rather have no response than laughs from an audience that had mercy on me.
In looking back, the best I did was the first audition when I wasn't trying to be funny but truthful to the character.The honesty and simplicity was what made it funny in the first place.But for the first time in front of an audience I did ok. When the whole cast sang together I just mouthed the words under my breath.
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