The Dead Man's Cell Phone That Almost Was

I was really looking forward to getting back into the theater after I finished my MBA. I needed a for fun hobby, ya know? Reclaim some of the fun and whimsy that I used to have. But I couldn't commit to much while we were job searching.

We've been settled down in West Bend for a couple months, so I started to look for play auditions. And I found one! In my home town! So I went.

They were reading for a play I'd never heard of before -- "Dead Man's Cell Phone". As I watched the scenes unfold during the auditions, I thought it was quite funny, but overall I was surprised it was as edgy as it was. We are still in West Bend, WI, right? Well, it's just an audition. I'll just have fun with it.

Then the director called and he offered me the lead role. Seriously?! I've never been a lead role before. It was surreal. Of course, I didn't lose myself completely. I told him I had some reservations with the script. But he said he was editing the script somewhat to take the edge off.

So, I came in for a reading. And I thought the changes might make it ok enough to do the play. So, I said yes.

But there were a couple of things that never seemed quite resolved. For one thing, my character kisses a couple of people. Not surprisingly, this fact seems to cause my husband a fair amount of discomfort. For another thing, I still have a line where I drop several 4 letter words, even WITH editing. And there's a monologue about sex from another character. It's not SUPER explicit. But it's not PG either.

Safe to say, it's not a family play. And I kept thinking  back to Elder Oaks' talk, Good Better, Best. My first thought in reconciling the concerns I had about the script, was to think, "It's not that bad." And there it was. Not that bad. The best I could say for it was "it's not that bad."

I was in denial for a little while -- four days and one rehearsal, to be exact. And then I came to my senses and called the director this morning to tell him I couldn't do it. He was gracious enough to offer to edit some more, but I knew that there was no amount of editing that was going to make this play content I could do and really apply Elder Oaks' counsel.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little heart-broken. And I'm not really sure my standards are as rigid and high as I just set them. But they always say you're supposed to experiment. So this time, I'm experimenting with erring on the side of caution. So long, lead role. So long doing a play this spring, now that I've gone and missed all the other auditions.

This seems like a very petty thing. And yet, it really kinda hurts. As life does, I guess. To be sure, this will find it's way into a YW lesson in my near future.