The Thoughts I Have With a New Script in Hand

Jennifer Butler

I showed up at the first rehearsal and they gave me a script. I was able to sit with the cast onstage and I was even measured for a costume. It took all of the procedures to happen for me to realize that this is really happening. Even when I saw my name on the cast list, I still did not believe it. I am actually in the show!

Now that it has been almost a week since the cast list was released I still can’t figure out how I feel about the whole thing.  I am partly freaking out because this is all new to me, but also excited for the opportunity to be able to call myself an actress now. I have waited so long for this opportunity in the place that I have worked so many other roles in. It’s all surreal and for the first time in 3 years I feel lost inside the theater. There are many thoughts racing through my mind but I can sum it up with this: How am I going to pull this off? I know it will all come together, it always does. And, I am willing to learn and do what it takes to get it right. But that did not make me feel any better during my first musical rehearsal. For the first time in a while, I felt hindered in such a familiar space, hearing all the words that I have to memorize!

But, what I think that I need to do is take this for what it is; a learning experience and perhaps also the adventure that I have been looking for for so long now. It is completely unexpected that it’s really happening. After auditioning for Community Theater a few times over the past 2 years, this was not one I expected to work on. However, aren’t all the best adventures the unexpected ones?  

What will occur over the next eight weeks is still unknown to me. Even when the time comes on opening night, I can’t comprehend right now what it will feel like when the house lights go down and the stage lights come up. I will be standing there onstage and, for a change, it is okay for the audience to see me. I don’t have to wear all black and hide away in the background.… But that’s okay, because I am not there yet. I will figure out things as I go along, with one step and one rehearsal at a time.

And by the end of the first night, I had been reminded of these 3 things:

1) Take a deep breath

2) Take lots of notes

3) Take it all in

Because in the end, with this being my first experience as an actress in the world of Community Theater, I am sure I will never forget this opportunity.