The Callback

I had a job interview today and I feel so seen.

Allow me to share some background for perspective. In April of this year I began job searching with the knowledge that I would eventually be laid off. At the end of July I was laid off. At the beginning of August I launched LIT Comms. Anyone who has started a small business knows a steady income isn’t magically automatic, so I continued to search for part or full time employment in the spirit of financial stability.

Since April I’ve applied for at least 400 different jobs. I’ve submitted at least 200 different cover letters tailored for each position and employer. Today I went to my 5th job interview. Fifth. Yes, the fifth interview overall since April and over 400 applications later. And I probably won’t hear back until after New Year’s, but that works out so I can max out my time with the kids during their winter break. 

And I feel good. Really good. Just for having the interview and representing myself in an authentic and honest way (without sounding too desperate). And that’s because of something an acting professor shared with me in college.

It was in the early 2000s and I was a community college freshman in my early 20s, freshly discharged (honorably) from the Navy. I chose to return to the performing arts for my undergraduate studies, pursuing a path of Theatre Arts with an emphasis in Performance. I auditioned for just about everything I could and was cast in many of them. Rarely was I the lead, but I would have a supporting role that the audience would love (aka I crushed it in the minimal stage time I was given). In one show, the mother of the student playing the lead came into the green room after the show and told me I was her favorite. That was definitely quite the compliment. 

Another semester, on one particularly tough afternoon, I was talking to my mentor/professor about my disappointment in being passed over for a lead role after utterly smoking the audition. What she told me I still hold onto this day, in regards to any capacity resembling an audition or an interview. 

“It is not the actor’s job to get cast. It is the actor’s job to get a callback.” (Ok, it may not be a direct quote, but that was the gist of it.)

She went on to explain that from the actor’s perspective it is their job to prepare and audition. They come to the audition to be considered. It is not their job to get cast. Casting decisions usually belong to the director, and it is their job to tell the story in the script the playwright has written in the best collaborative way possible, which includes assembling the right cast. (This is where it becomes enlightening for me.) The actor has no control (or knowledge, usually) of who all else is auditioning, what the casting director is thinking, or any of that. All they control is how well they present themselves at the audition. Now if the actor gets a callback, that means the audition went well and the production team wants to see if they are a good fit for the role/cast/production. An actor may present what is technically and fundamentally the strongest audition, but if they aren’t the right fit for the role, they aren’t the right fit for the role. For example, if there was a production about MLK Jr. and I auditioned for the principal role, it doesn’t matter how good my audition was, I don’t fit the part, and I get passed over.

So, in regards to non-theatre situations where interviews are involved, I regard it like an audition. I can prepare and present the best of myself when I get the chance, but if I don’t fit the role, then I don’t fit the role. And when I think I fit the role based on what was shared in the job description, it really doesn’t matter because I’m not the employer/casting director with the correct perspective for their role. Here is where topics of meritocracy/nepotism/scandal come in, and I’m not diving down that rabbit hole, but I think I’ve shared enough to where you get where I was going with this.

Shortly after that interaction (and for a couple addition reasons) I switched my education focus from Performance to Directing, but I’ll leave that for another blog. 

Until then, this is just another example of how…

Life is Theatrical.