in response to Broken Theater

When I was 26 I was
When I was 7 I was
When I was 22 I had an audition for a film called, Deerdemic 2: The Resurgence.
When I was 10 I tried to understand
When I was 14 I was
When I was 27 I tried to

When I was 25 I told a funny story about an audition I had for Deerdemic 2: The Resurgence.
It made me cringe, but how infamously LA was it to have a story about being asked to take your shirt off in an audition room?

When I was 19 I adopted my best friend, Plato. He was approximately three months old. A small black-lab-pit mix with scrapes on his snout and bloated puppy belly. I was 19 and the only true thing that I knew–that I knew with all of myself–was I wanted to take care of him. He followed me without a leash. We ran errands together. He sat with me while I read. He ate my books when I went to class. He shat on the floor and once on the wall. And it was the first time that I understood Unconditional Love. There was no moment, even when I was the most frustrated and confused and angry with him, that I was not also filled through the nostrils with love.

I brought him home for the holidays and my mom was calmly irate. That type of parental anger that you can see slithering under the skin. She saw him, left the house for “groceries” and came back with papers for me to give him up for adoption.

That’s a pitbull.
He’s going to get so big.
He’s dangerous and will become more dangerous.
You can’t take care of that.

I held him close to my chest. Kissed the top of his head. And informed my mother that Plato wasn’t going anywhere.

When I was 22 I didn’t have an agent because the only agent to take a meeting with me told me

Well, you aren’t classically attractive
We’re only taking on clients who can land roles
on the CW.
Models.
You aren’t beautiful
in a traditional way
Maybe adorkable
But you understand
You aren’t right for us

I didn’t have a manager because the first one I met with wanted me to sign a contract with a three year commitment to pay him 15% of any job I landed. Even if he never got me a single audition. When I asked him about it he said

Who the fuck do you think you are.
You are nobody
How dare you accuse me of
trying to take advantage of you.
There is nothing to take advantage of.
Good luck ever finding representation in this town

He actually said that. Like some evil studio producer from a 1940’s picture.

Good luck ever finding representation
in this town, kiddo.
You’re yesterday’s garbage.

The next two managers I met with used my phone number to send me 3 AM

Hey. You up?

texts.

So I never signed with anyone. I found my own auditions, read my own contracts, escorted myself to meetings, and tried to navigate the “town.”

When I was 13 I had a 32D chest. I was 5’2, with baby fat cheeks, around 90 lbs, smelly feet from ballet and adolescent hormones, and had started developing breasts at age 8. I was on South Beach with my other 13-year-old friends in our Limited TOO bikinis, walking, and laughing, and crying from the growing pains. I don’t even know what he looked like. The moment I heard his voice my attention rocketed to my throat and my bowels.

DAMN. Look at those titties. Let me get inside that.

I was embarrassed. A scared child with breasts. But what I felt like was a sack of hot blood ready for my friends to run away from me. To flee from the danger and humiliation I brought on us. I was a “that.” A kind of sexualized monster. To be feared and ridiculed. Not a person, not a developing little being with feelings, ambition, and heart. I was a “that.” And his voice did get inside of me.

When Plato was 2 years old we lived in Tallahassee, FL. I was attending college and Plato was growing up. Other than a deep fear of trashbags, that I could only assume about, all of the scratches and wounds he had when I first got him from the shelter had healed. He was house-broken, only destroyed toys specifically designated for him, and was working to become a talented fly assassin. And he had gotten big. Approximately 75 lbs and legs so long that people often mistook him for a Great Dane.

In the afternoons when I came home from class I would sit on the carpet in front of him, place his paws on my shoulders and mine on his soft sides. We would sit like this, eye to eye, and I would ask

What did you do today?
Was it boring? Was it fun?
What did you learn?

Sometimes he would open his mouth very wide and let out a high-pitched yawn or something that sounded like an underwater sea leopard yodel. One time I asked these questions and he bounded off to the side, grabbed his rope, shook it around, dropped it and came back to me.

I did some of this with my rope
It was okay
It’s more fun when you hold the other side

But most of the time we would just sit like that for a moment. Seeing each other.

(Int.) Body of Actor - 22nd year of life

Stomach begins to churn and the sphincter tightens.

Caterpillars take small bites out of the inside of Actor’s larynx.

A cottontail scratches out a nest behind Actor’s eye sockets before birthing a litter of three. With eyes shut tight and mouths reaching they suck on the pituitary gland and temporal lobe.

(Int.) Windowless Audition Room - Day

The 36th floor of a named-after-someone building in Century City.

Actor walks in and realizes that it is only one man with a video camera sitting in the room.

Tommy
My name is Tommy Le and
I am the writer and
director of the famous Deerdemic movie.
This will be the sequel to that famous movie.
You’ll read with me today and
I’ll record the audition to review later.
Is that okay? Okay. Let’s start.

brief beat.

Tommy
Great. Yes. I really liked that.
We will read it again and
this time I’ll have you
take off your shirt.

Actor pauses and swallows. Blinks. Swallows again.

Actor
There wasn’t anything in the casting notice about
needing to disrobe.
It didn’t say anything about
there being nudity in the movie.

Tommy
No. No, nudity. But
there is a scene where you will be in your underwear or
maybe a bikini top. I haven’t decided yet. But
I need to know if you have any scars or birthmarks and
what you look like without a shirt.

Gas audibly bubbles in Actor’s lower abdomen. Actor swallows again and we can hear her saliva moving down her throat.

The baby deer that lives inside of her wants to run.

Her grown-up voice,
or the grown-ups’ voices that live inside of her remind her that

she has never been anything
is always asking too much
is always talking too much
is always being too much
is incapable of doing what she’s supposed to

insist that

she should follow instructions
because she doesn’t want to upset anyone
because then she might get yelled at
might get cold eggs scraped onto her head
might be dragged and thrown into a cold shower
might make it hard to love her
might get slapped
might be thrown into the closet door
might not make it home
might not get the role

Actor takes off shirt and immediately feels her skin moist and clammy in the small windowless room. Tommy notes that her breasts are 32DDD and extra full at this point in her menstrual cycle.

Actor
I’m reading the scene. I’m reading the scene.
I’m fighting with myself and waiting to be released
from this moment because
I don’t know yet that I’m always allowed
to leave a room that I am uncomfortable in.
That I am always allowed to say no.
That I do not owe this person anything.
But I don’t know this yet. And so
I’m reading through the scene.

Tommy
Great. Yes. Great. Thank you. Okay
I have it on tape.
You can go now.

Actor puts back on shirt and stands up. Exits.

Int. Elevator - Day

In the elevator down to her car that she had to valet for $15 in order to attend this audition she receives an email:

Dear Ms. Morgan,

Director Le was very impressed with your audition materials. He would like to have a 2nd audition callback with you on Thursday. This callback will also be recorded, but will take place at a bar called Happy Endings in West Hollywood.

Let me know asap if this works for you.

Regine
Assistant to Thomas Le
Director of the famous Deerdemic movie

She gets into her car and drives two blocks and parks. The world is blurry streaks. Eels push their way through her intestines. Flies crawl up her esophagus. The world tilts and she slips in the opposite direction.

In the Memory of Her Mother’s Voice
her mother’s mother’s voice
her mother’s mother’s mother’s voice
Why Why Why
You stupid stupid bitch

She gasps as the flies swarm out of her mouth and a putrid stream of air leaves her anus. A sense of self lost between the shimmering animals that inhabit a body and the scrubbed and blowdried package of whatever anyone in a casting room determines that body to be.

When I was 34, which is what I am now, I had to say goodbye to Plato.

For almost 15 years, before bed, I would sit on the floor next to Plato’s bed and put my face to his and say

You are important
You are loved
You are kind
And smart
And oh so beautiful