being bad
well, here we are. i haven’t updated this blog in well over a year… oops! i’ve just been soooo busy (that’s a brag). let me give you the highlights of 2024:
moved to nyc with best friend margeaux. auditioned. explored my neighborhood. got cast in the goblin woman, my first play in nyc. saw the cherry blossoms. produced my own play, girls just wanna commit domestic terrorism, at the tank. threw a killer birthday party. got laid off from my tech job. saw sooo many plays. applied to an artist residency program in my neighborhood. got accepted! tried far too many new restaurants. started a new job as a legal assistant at a divorce law firm. auditioned. joined the first cohort of a mentorship program at the actor’s center. fell in love. lived my life. practiced infinite and unending gratitude.
and that’s just barely scratching the surface!
“but laura scott,” i can hear you saying, “we’re well into 2025! we want to hear about what you’re doing NOW.”
well, dear reader, you can find out more about THAT by going to my current & upcoming page!
here and now, instead of giving you boring updates on my “career goals” and “life ambitions,” i’d like to talk a little bit about something that’s been on my mind.
two days ago marked the first day of rehearsal for my first truly professional play in new york city. it was a deliriously exciting day, filled with experiences that were truly brand new to me, and sparked such gratitude and joy in my heart.
it was also a day marked by real, true fear of being found out and labeled as the worst actor in the world.
exactly one week earlier, i was asked to read a play with a group of other young actors. my guileless, gullible self was just excited to read a new play and meet new people, and never ONCE did it cross my mind that this “reading” might be anything more than just that. because i didn’t know any better, i didn’t even read the play beforehand. it was a complete cold read, and i giggled my way through the whole thing, not thinking or caring for a second about being a “good actor.”
when i got an email offering me the role two days later, i was truly and genuinely astounded, and then it dawned on me. “i’m an IDIOT,” i cackled on the phone with my mom. “it was an audition, and i didn’t even REALIZE!”
i could be wrong, but i think the fact that i was “tricked” into auditioning for this play might be the very reason i ended up booking the role. released from the shackles of expectation and my own inner critic, my creativity was allowed to run wild.
so, conversely, at the first read-through, when i was surrounded by the producers who hired me and my incredibly talented castmates (who i already can’t believe i’m acting alongside) and a dozen other people i’d never met, my inner critic came back out in full force.
i read basic lines of text in ways that i’m sure no single human has ever uttered before. i felt overwhelmed with relief when one line would get a laugh, and disgusted with myself when another wouldn’t. i barely looked my fellow actors in the eyes because i was so worried about what was on the page, about missing something.
i left rehearsal number one absolutely and genuinely convinced that i had lost any ounce of skill i ever had as an actor.
but at rehearsal the next day, i happened to step in on a conversation two of my fellow castmates were having.
now, i need to preface this next bit by saying that both of these women are absolute powerhouse performers. (i guarantee you have seen both of them on your tv screens before.) and yet, they were vocalizing to each other the very same insecurities that i had felt the day before: that the first read-through hadn’t felt good to them, that their “audition” readings had been better, and that they needed time to warm up and step into their roles.
at first, i was shocked to hear them express those feelings. then, as i chimed into the conversation and shared my own experiences, i felt incredibly validated.
why do we do this to ourselves, i wonder? internalize this mysterious outside pressure to be “good”? and why does it affect our perception of ourselves so deeply? my experience of both women’s read-throughs were worlds different than how they felt about their own work.
here’s the thing: i don’t think that this “first read-through feeling” is ever going to go away. my castmates, who have been in “the business” far longer than i have, made that clear to me. so i think it’s less about getting rid of the feeling and more about accepting the truth of the matter, which is:
you’re going to get where you’re going. maybe, just for a little bit, you need to let yourself be “bad.”
