Collegiate Times

Almost anyone who has auditioned for a show will tell you how utterly terrifying it is to go into a room and perform, knowing full well that you are being judged the entire time you are there.

It’s a similar sensation to discovering your mom showing your naked baby pictures to a girl you have only been on one date with.

Greg Justice is the show’s director. I knew him from a class he taught last spring and I get along well with him, and yet, walking into the audition room was like showing him that awkward picture where I’m splashing around in my kiddy pool with only a cowboy hat on.

I suppose it’s better to have those butterflies in November instead of on opening night in front of a packed Squires Studio Theatre.

I remember finishing my monologue and feeling good about it. Then 20 seconds later, Greg asked for a favor.

“Can you do it again for me? But this time, do it like a complete psychopath,” he said.

I’d like you to imagine just how utterly loony I must have acted to get that part. After three days of nerve-wracking anticipation, I found out that I was cast alongside 16 other people in Wilder’s surreal show.

Am I the lead actor? No, but I do play the Greek poet and philosopher Homer. That is, if he was a dirty, blind, old bluesman.

I am about to embark upon my own adventure into the crazy world of “Skin,” a world with fortunetellers, drunken revelers and nuclear war. My friend Ray plays a dinosaur.

Clearly, we have a lot of work to do to get this thing to seem tight and well assembled.

As an actor, I promise to do everything I can to deliver. As a writer, I promise to keep you, our most excellent readers, engaged with the show in a way that has never been available in our community.

Check your CT every Thursday for my “Skin of Our Teeth” updates. Next week, I’ll be back to talk about the rehearsal process.

Join me and we’ll take a walk on the Wilder side.

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