The read thru

Tonight was the first official step towards putting on the show, the initial read-thru. It's exactly what it sounds like; the cast and director get together and read the script right out of the book. Nobody's really trying to act, there's no timing or even chemistry. A couple of people are fooling around with accents and inflections but it's really more of a bonding experience than anything else. It's the first opportunity for everyone to see each other in one room and, let's be honest, size each other up: 'This guy is probably going to be cool, this guy might be a pain in the ass and, ooh, she's kinda cute, etc.' I don't know anybody in the cast but they all seem to know each other. That's to be expected. It's still to be determined what shakes out but I have a feeling I will remain Mr. Outside Guy to a large extent. When not completely comfortable around people I don't know, I can tend to be a little...distant. We'll see.
Tonight was my first opportunity to read the whole script and I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not in the greatest mood. I knew BREWESTER wasn't a huge role but I didn't realize that I'll only be in ONE SCENE. Not only that, but the first scene!! After that, I'm done for the night, folks. I'm pretty sure if I had been fully aware of that fact I probably would have politely opted out. That's the bad news. The good news is I'll only have to drive out to Plant City once a week or so instead of three or four times. And at least I'm getting paid. Oh wait a minute, no, I'm not. Somewhat helping my crappy mood is that the part of me that isn't pissed off is quite amused by the fact that anybody, including me, would be disappointed about not having a bigger role in "The Beverly Hillbillies" fer cryin' out loud. The stage direction that says "BREWSTER exits L", should say "BREWSTER exits L, goes backstage puts his iPod on and chills for an hour and a half" because that's what I'm going to do. There are worse ways to spend an evening, I suppose. For instance, instead of driving out to Plant City tonight and reading a small handful of lines before staring at the wall for an hour I could have hung out with my ne'er do well friends and over-imbibed in green beer. Hey, thanks community theatre!! Maybe on show nights, I'll just do my part, change clothes and go out in the audience. Maybe I'll just do my part, change clothes and go out and have some beers! Hey, I'm feeling better and better about this!
Besides, Alec Baldwin did ok with only being in the first scene of "Glengarry Glen Ross".

Maybe that's how I should handle this. I wonder if they have a set of these in the prop closet.