i hate potatoes

Actually, I don't hate potatoes at all, merely the state that they come from.  And actually, I don't hate the state, so much as I hate that it is "a little landlocked bitch" (Brendan's words, not mine) and where I happen to be in the weeks before and after I want to fly somewhere.  There are no airports in Idaho.  Okay so there are, but I don't know why, because I've driven through there and there definitely aren't any people.

But seriously?  Why?  Fortunately it looks like we're going to be having Friday shows, so I can get up and leave in plenty of time to get to Spokane to take a flight to Seattle to take a flight to Hawaii for spring break!  Unfortunately Spokane is almost nine hours away from where we will be in Idaho.  So basically, if we don't have Friday shows, I am screwed.  Completely.  Guess I am just gonna have to be the over-zealous tour actor who emails a town twelve weeks in advance...

Idaho aside, today was only okay.  The audition went well, but we had a ton of decently talented kids, so it was VERY hard to cast.  No one stood out, but no one was amazing either.  We cut a bunch of kids who couldn't behave among the youngest group, but the second youngest group really felt like total random selection.  I don't think I've ever felt so badly about cutting kids from a cast.  And on top of that, I had a list of kids to look out for which I completely ignored.  I don't know why I did it.  I just wasn't thinking, but I feel incredible guilty because I know I didn't cast some of them.  I cast most of them, but I missed casting a little girl who's mom is sick.  She had been added to the list and this fact was NOT made clear to me.  Fortunately, she is very little, so we called her up and asked her to be a seahorse anyway.

I am not against political casting.  I know it's the way of the world.  And I know, proportionally speaking, to a cast of sixty, eight or ten kids is not a lot.  But it gets really hard to keep track of kids, especially when you're seeing eighty five of them for the first time ever.  If I haven't seen and identified a kid that I have to cast before the audition, I have a hard time remembering them.  Today I realized I did not listen to a single one of those kids names.  Had I been smarter, I would have asked our contact to point out all of the kids on her list.  Instead I was stupid and just started the audition, completely ignoring the list.

I have always had to learn things the hard ways.  I learn though failure.  It's an unfortunate fact but, nevertheless, it is just that.  A fact.  And since I screwed up once, it won't happen again.

That being said, I am gonna need to get a recording of one of the scouts doing her commercial for "Life Water" in which she plays several different characters and includes a segment in which an assistant declares it is time to upgrade to HD.  That girl WON'T STOP TALKING but MAN is she funny.  She also had decided to go by the name "Dr. Evil".  Our cast of scouts currently includes aforementioned Austin Powers villain, The Bug, Moo and probably some other strange characters who's names escape me right now.