I Bombed an Audition and It Was the Best Thing That Happened to Me

I'd always wanted to do theatre.

Always. Since I was a kid watching plays in school, thinking "I want to be up there." But I never tried. I was too scared, or too busy, or too something. There was always a reason not to.

Then last year I ran out of reasons.

I showed up to an audition for a local production. I was nervous in a way I haven't been nervous since maybe my first client call. Hands shaking. Mouth dry. Brain empty.

I got on stage. And I was terrible.

Not charmingly bad. Not "rough around the edges." Just bad. Forgot the lines I'd memorized. Spoke too fast. Moved like a robot who'd been told what humans look like but had never actually seen one.

They cast me anyway. I still don't know why. Maybe they saw something I couldn't. Maybe they were short on people. Either way.

And then the show happened. And something happened on that stage that I wasn't expecting. Under the lights, in front of people, saying someone else's words, I felt more like myself than I had in months. Maybe years.

It doesn't make sense. Pretending to be someone else made me feel more real. But it did. Something about the vulnerability of it. The absolute exposure. You're up there with nowhere to hide and the only option is to be fully, completely present.

I walked off that stage and I understood something: you don't have to be good at something for it to change your life. You just have to show up and let it.

I'm still not good at acting. I might never be. But I'm going back. Because the version of me that exists on that stage is a version I want to know better.

-I.R.