Unnaturally Green (3 page)

And all of Oz was stricken with
Saturday Night Fever.

Stage manager David asked if I had any last-minute questions—
any last requests?
—then next assured me everything was going to be fine, which of course was a lie. I said something back to him, but I have no idea what it was—I was too busy thinking, “I hope I don’t get the hiccups and start farting uncontrollably,” which guaranteed that this would, indeed, happen. Even worse, for the life of me I couldn’t remember if I’d warmed up my voice that day—and, holy crap, I wasn’t sure I could even
sing
the damn part!

How will I ever be able to do this?

There were supposed to be hours more rehearsal before I’d ever go on. What happened to more practice? What happened to more coaching? What happened to pruning my Elphaba tree?

Universe, you’re such a pain in my ass!

I’d been painted, primed, and preened, and the hydra that was my assembly team dispersed so that I might stand at full stature, dressed in black from head to toe. There I stood, frozen, the final frame in my own version of one of those evolution posters, in which the chimp becomes the human. The Felicia had become The Elphaba: newly-green skin, pointy witch's hat pinned to her rather large head—a head that should have belonged to someone else—someone older, wiser, and better equipped to rescue a multimillion dollar musical.

Just breathe.

Somebody handed me a water bottle, so I gulped. Somebody handed me green glasses, so I put them on. Through the dressing room monitor playing live audio I could hear we were minutes from the swap—the moment when Eden would run off stage and I would run on, hopefully without anyone in the audience noticing. 

We began our trek to the wings. Every image whizzed by, like scenery past a runaway train—with green-tinted windows. Though surrounded by people, I felt so inconsolably alone, trying to ignore the chatter of voices in my head. I needed to release myself from the stronghold of self-doubt and become someone else entirely.

To become Elphaba Thropp, brave and uncompromising.

2. AUDITION

T
he casting office, large with high ceilings, was like an airport terminal. Here, travelers dawdled in limbo, helpless to their fates. When it came time to board, so came it time to pray, breathless, that they wouldn’t crash into the side of a mountain.

I sat on a bench, examining the walls. The far section was painted green. Not a calming, earthy green; a neon, seizure-inducing green—like 80s spandex or radioactive waste.  The other wall had five identical doors, each of which opened to a different room, like a funhouse that was not fun. Next to every door was a table with a sign-up sheet and clusters of people organized by size, gender, and color—the short balding men, the muscular Hispanic teenagers, then, in the distance, a cheerleader squad of blonde girls wearing Keds and doing calf stretches. Every now and then somebody would come out one of the doors, looking stunned and confused, like they’d just awoken from a nightmare-filled nap.

Seizure-funhouse-terminal or not, this was better than most audition studios, which, if pressed on the matter, I would bet were designed by the same people who designed prisons, what with their barred windows, cell-sized rooms, and torture-chamber bathrooms. This jailhouse aesthetic was something you noticed at first, but eventually got used to—like the smell of sewage, or the fact that your high school boyfriend clearly preferred men. After a year of auditioning in the city, if ever I changed clothes in a stall larger than a dog kennel, while liquid didn’t drip soundlessly from the ceiling onto my head, I thought it the absolute height of extravagance.

I’d arrived at today’s audition fifteen minutes early, allotting time at home for a hot shower warm-up and the consumption of my audition breakfast of choice: a banana, to be eaten precisely one hour before my appointment. Months of testing and I’d determined that this was the perfect actor’s food and time frame to eat in; you could gear up for your appointment with adequate energy stores, and not worry that you’d have to—you know. Go number two. (TMI? Get used to it—this is a memoir!) Not only that, but I’d read online that bananas decreased bloating, a helpful perk when you’re trying to squeeze into something form-fitting and/or convince a casting panel of the fake weight you’ve listed on your resume.

To keep myself occupied, I started leafing through my audition materials—all twenty-six pages. It wasn’t long before my fingers started sticking to the paper, smudging ink and crinkling the corners. Sweaty hands could mean only one thing, so I glanced down at my pits to check for leakage. Sure enough, two dark stains had begun to creep down the sides of my rib cage, like the careful work of pit-soldiers digging secret sweat-trenches. Panicked, I nose-dove into myself for a whiff, relieved to find that there was no discernible stench. Yet.

Publicly smelling one’s own armpits is generally bad form; at auditions, it’s a matter of course. Glancing around the room, I saw ten or so other girls engaging in all kinds of fantastically weird behavior. Some were hunched over and swaying, others were reciting lines with their eyes closed or humming softly to themselves. One shoeless girl was blowing raspberries while shimmying and slapping her own arms. Another sat with a rolling suitcase and kept applying lipstick, blotting her lips, tucking her lipstick into her suitcase, looking up, then reaching back for more lipstick. About five loops in, she looked up and I smiled and did a half-wave. The loop kept going, so I said,

“You here for
Wicked
?”

“Yes,” she said, reaching for her lipstick.

“Oh, cool! Me too.”

She replied with a blot, so I added, for good measure, “That’s so fun.”

When I’m nervous, conversation is my coping mechanism; ask any doctor who’s tried drawing my blood. Growing up I actually loved taking standardized tests, not just because I could overachieve in measurable amounts but because while taking them I was always at my most social. One time before the SAT our proctor was late showing up, so I organized an impromptu game of Two Truths and a Lie, which, by happy accident, helped prime me for the multiple choice section.

Lipstick Loop was clearly not interested in talking to me, so I went back to my materials. Having memorized my lines, I felt fairly confident about the acting portion. But the singing? The excerpt from “The Wizard and I” was bad, and “Defying Gravity” was brutal. Even running the melodies in my head made my vocal cords pulse.

I’d practiced for hours, but the working plan at that point was to “fake it.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but I’d heard other actors say it a lot. I think it meant that I should walk in, project a confident version of myself, and under no circumstances start weeping uncontrollably. As if to say, “Ignore the pit stains, ignore the goose honking, and cast me! I’ll knock this role out of the park!”

In other words: lie.

Through Un-Funhouse Door 2 I heard the sustained sound of a woman scream-crying. Either that or she was doing an excellent job singing “Defying Gravity.” It was hard to tell. This was just one of many perception-bending tricks of audition waiting rooms. Through a closed door, everybody sounds amazing, or at least better than you. I could tell other people’s ears were perking up to the shrill (or maybe pleasant?) note that was being held for what seemed like five minutes. Then there was a riff, more scream-crying, another riff, and sudden silence. (Had she keeled over?)

A dark-complexioned woman wearing skinny jeans walked out the door. The scream-crier was in our midst, and I watched as she wagged her mouth and flicked her tongue against the back of her teeth, like there was taffy stuck to her palate. Her hair looked disheveled and I think she was panting a little.

One of the balding men looked up at her.

“Fierce,” he said.

Then, as if she didn’t hear him, said it again. “
Fierce
!”

Closely behind her was casting director Craig, who was consulting the sign-up sheet.

“Maryann?”

A tiny girl wearing a headband and a poofy wool sweater bounced over to the door.

“You ready?” Craig asked.

She nodded. I watched as she disappeared into the room, an innocent lamb marching to her slaughter. The door closed and soon muffled music started to play.

I was pretty sure I was next, but I tiptoed up to the sign-up sheet to double check. I did this also to position myself closer to the door, for more effective eavesdropping. In oblong cursive, I saw my name etched on the damning document, directly below Maryann’s. Next to it was a box for my cell number and union affiliation, the latter of which I’d left blank. Giving the sheet a quick rundown, I saw that almost all the other girls were members of Actor’s Equity, which wasn’t the end of the world, but maybe a point against me.

Sigh.

To me, being without an Actor’s Equity card meant I hadn’t yet proven myself. Not to the casting office, not to
Wicked
, and not to myself. I wasn’t—by anyone’s standards—a “professional.” Chugging along the audition circuit for almost a year, I’d created a pressure-cooker situation: no matter how many shows I did, until I’d joined the union and worked under Equity contract, I wouldn’t feel like I’d really arrived. Like I’d really become an
actress
.

I leaned in toward the door to listen, immediately regretting it. This girl’s voice was perfect. She was nearing the climax of the song, and her delivery was clear and effortless, as if the notes, high and brutal as they were, were floating from her mouth like gossamer bubbles of sound. Dear Maryann had managed to make an incredibly taxing song sound like a lullaby. A stern lullaby—sung by a militant nanny. But a lullaby, nonetheless.

There was some muffled talking, which I assumed meant they were running the scenes. It occurred to me that I should probably start readying my materials. Between a headshot, résumé, binder of songs, and loose sheets of Elphaba music and scene excerpts, it was crucial that I walk into the room with a handle on everything, lest I hand my pianist my headshot and the casting director my water bottle, or a tampon, or something bizarre like this. (You laugh, but it could happen.)

Maryann began a second lullaby, this time to the tune of “Defying Gravity,” which meant I had about one minute until my name was called. I felt my teeth start to chatter, my jaw buzzing from the waves of nerves.

Soon the door swung open and Maryann trotted out. Moments later and Craig was standing in front of me.

“Felicia?”

“Yes?”

“Hi, good to see you. You ready?”

“I think so!”

“I’ll take your headshot and résumé.”

“Awesome.”

Then, into the fire!

Through Un-Funhouse Door 2 I soldiered to the center of the room, facing casting director Craig. He had seated himself behind a table, next to a young man in a flannel button-down with a very stylish faux hawk. They were both looking down.

The top of any audition can be awkward, so I like to greet everybody first rather than jump into the material. But if I’m feeling particularly nervous, I sometimes resort to coughing or sneezing, or making some other bodily noise that declares my existence (so far, it hasn’t come to farting).

I coughed.

Nothing.

I pointed a finger gun at Faux Hawk.

“Hello there!”

Craig looked up.

“Hello, Felicia. Let’s start with ‘The Wizard and I.’”

“Great! I’ve got that right here!”

I walked over to the pianist at the far end of the room.

“Howdy,” I said, continuing the Western theme and handing off my sheet music.

“Oh, no need for that,” the pianist said, tapping two fingers on his binder, which was overflowing with sheet music. Flustered, I shuffled a bunch of pages to the bottom of my pile, careful to separate my scene excerpts from the rest, sorting each page, one-by-one.

“Whenever you’re ready,” said Craig.

I tossed my pages on top of the piano and darted back to center.

Help.

Without warning, music began to play—a dreamlike vamp of rolling chords.

I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to sing.

“Unlimited…”