I feel like I am a cliche right now.  I majored in music and theater in college and quit when I met my husband (and realized that I actually wanted a job and a career) and now I teach history to freshman and I LOVE it.  But I miss doing shows a LOT.  When I was studying performance I had really grand notions about how valuable the work I was doing was.  Like I was nurturing souls and helping the world through Sondheim.  I got over that real quick when I moved on to academia and became involved with grassroots politics.  Its not like I throw it in my husbands face "I was gonna be a star and now I'm just a freaking housewife!" I think I could have had a moderately successful career in theater and now have the same in education and politics.

 But now I miss it a lot.  I am very committed to local organizing and my job, but I really miss theater.  It is something that I can do that is hard work and pure fun (most of the time, there is a little drama and strife, but that is fun as well).  The music is fun, the people are fun, costumes, makeup, sets, lighting, newspaper reviews, cast parties etc.  All fun.  At the same time I know  this is not as good of use of my time as say, mentoring inner city kids, promoting universal healthcare, canvassing etc.  I understand this, but now I think I want to put on high heels and fake eyelashes and dance just because I want to.

 Now here is the problem I face.  The theater community in my town is very large, tight-knit and vibrant.  Local theater is not always a  crappy version of Neil Simon in the high school auditorium.  There is a lot going on theater-wise in my city, and in the past I have been able to to some pretty big budget shows.  But as with any community of creatives trying to do anything, there are alliances and relationships built over time, and over the past few years I have been more focused on creating relationships with 9th graders in my U.S. History classes than maintaining my theater contacts (thank God for Facebook or else I would have fallen off the map completely).  Then there is also the strange paradox of when I am in other major cities I get plum roles and lots of encouragement, and in my hometown the attitude is "meh." Hence my anxiety.

 With all that said it has been almost 5 years since I have done a show and I miss it.  I am planning on auditioning for one in 3 weeks, and it is making me feel barfy just thinking about it.  Here are the factors that induce nausea:

1) First and foremost, I have gained about 50 pounds since most of these people have seen me last (I went from looking like I had anorexia to looking slightly plump, not dumpy or fatso) and am super freaked about being judged for it.  I need to remind myself that I didn't get  a lot of roles back then because I was so tiny I looked like I was twelve.  It is exciting that I can play actual adults now.

2) I dumped the music director for my husband and it sucked.  I really want him to find a new girlfriend so that we can be friends again, but it is still really weird when I come in to auditions with my new last name.

 3) A singers voice is like a muscle and it can get out of shape.  I used to sing for at least 3-5 hours every day and had a pretty good range.   Now its not as smooth or strong.  That is frustrating because a woman's voice  reaches full maturity around my age.

 4)  My husband thinks theater is silly and shallow.  Boo.

 Luckily for me I have a super-supportive family, and my mom still wants to come to my auditions, hold my water bottle and mouth along to my songs even though I'm almost 30.

 So three weeks until auditions.  Now I just need to find a song to sing and try to loose about 10 pounds.