Directing Part 3: The "Getting-Sick-to-my-Stomach" Part

A week from today I'll be finishing up auditions, and all my troubles will be over. Ha. This is honestly the worst part of the process for me: waiting to see who, if anyone, shows up. And no, I'm not trying to be amusing -- I *know* Glass Menagerie is a classic, with terrific roles many actors would kill to do, and I *know* audition notices have gone out to a wide variety of people, but I still worry I'll end up looking at an empty room next Monday and Tuesday nights. Or worse yet, there'll be 3 or 4 people there, and they'll all be 14 years old with no experience on stage beyond playing the Easter Bunny in their church pageant, "Jesus and the Pagan Symbols of Everlasting Life."

Absurd, yes, but it's my not-so-secret fear anyway.

I've had light auditions before, usually for shows no-one's ever heard of, and the productions have all turned out great (or mostly great), so I should stop worrying. Right?

Sigh.

Moving right along. I roughed out a rehearsal schedule today; I'd like to do Mondays through Thursdays throughout September, then kick into higher gear and do Mondays through Fridays in October. Not terribly complicated, but I feel better for putting it down on paper. That's eight full weeks of rehearsal for a 4 (or 5) character play, which should be more than enough time for me to figure out what the heck I want the show to be. You'd think so, wouldn't you?

Problem is, I'm having more creative thoughts about the plays I'm going to be directing in 2008 (The Arabian Nights and True West, just in case anyone's interested, and I hope lots of people will be interested) than I am about Glass Menagerie. Right now, the whole play feels like a fly in amber -- very pretty, but fossilized, immovable. I'm not intimidated by the script, but I'm not completely engaged by it yet, either.

I think I'm looking for actors who will inspire me. No pressure on them or anything .