Powers that Be

My 10-year-old daughter heard a radio ad the other day advertising auditions for some children's show on the Nickelodeon channel. (Or are they all children's shows there?) In any case, she had assiduously--over a two-week period--cobbled all the information together from her intermittent listening until she came up with a phone number, which she handed to me on a crumpled piece of paper.

"Dad. I want to be an actress. Will you please call this number? Please? It's so I can go on an audition," she pleaded.

I was so taken aback by her clear-eyed determination--if somewhat alarmed by the goal--that I went ahead and called the number to humor her and find out whether it was a scam. From my brief conversation with the voice at the other end, I learned a legitimate agency called John Roberts Powers was holding the audition.

My daughter is not a wild -scheme-hatching sort of child, so my wife suggested the adventure couldn't harm her and she perhaps might learn a thing or to about the hard work needed to realize big goals.

I was expecting John Roberts Powers to be a funky one-room operation in a rundown strip mall. It was not. It was in a new building in a new part of a far-flung new suburban development. The office foyer, all architectural streamlines of glass and cherry, battened down with sensible but elegant oatmeal carpet, showcased bright white walls lined with a pantheon of poster-sized studio shots of "Powers Girls"--including Grace Kelly, Diana Ross, and a very young Lucille Ball. Beneath the track lighting, the stars of yesterday stared down at you, in turns winsome and vamp-like.  So Hollywood.

Then lot of sitting in a big room--along with about 100 others, parents of every race, creed , and color--and their young, would-be Hillary Duffs and, oh, I dunno, Jackie Coopers? Our children had to fill out applications, saying in exactly 100 words why the agency should work with them in the entertainment industry. Why indeed.

Presentations were actually good--a Powers national director stressing hard work and good grades with Midwestern sincerity and not a little dash of East Coast hutzpah; the second, a talent scout or rep thereof,  saying the same, but with a little less confidence and pizazz--I believe she'd only been in the business for a year or two, or a month or two.

Finally. Names called out for The Interview. We were ushered into an office, greeted by a suit, who then sat behind a desk.

He: "So how long have you wanted to be an actress?"

She: "For a long time." [Read: about 15 days.]

He: " So what kind of TV shows do you like to watch?"

She: "Umm. I don't know. I don't watch a lot of TV."

He: "So you don't have a favorite TV show?"

She: "Uh. No. I don't"

I very deliberately looked around the room at even more star photos to send the man the message that I wouldn't pay a dime for "developing" my daughter through the agency. In only looked down briefly enough at his desk to see him pencil a slash through the lower part of the application.

"Yes!" I thought. "We're outta' here!"

But we were not. On to the mini-video shoot, where all would-be's stood before a video camera and recited a line or two for a TV commercial. In my daughter's case, it was Pop Tarts.

Call us tomorrow at this time, said the exit person, handing me a slip of fuchsia-colored paper.

OK. Follow through--once you start these things, you have to have follow through. So I called.

He: [brightly] "She did really well for the audition. We'd like her to come back for a second one."

Me: "Oh. And what in particular did you like about her?"

He: [vaguely] "She really did a good job delivering her lines! There was something special there."

But of course there was the issue of "development" and tuition--one cannot just waltz into child acting and TV commercials without some training, he explained.

Alas, I had to had to 'fess up.

Me: "We have no money for this. Perhaps you have scholarships?"

He [probably already looking at the next name on his phone roster]: "I'm sorry. Not even for our most promising talent."

Me [brightly]: "Well, my daughter is, after all, still so young! Perhaps there will be other opportunities-- [vaguely] somewhere down the road?"

He: "Yes! We do have regular auditions."

Me: [with finality] "Very good. We'll think about it. Thank you so much!"

It was hard for my wife and I to gage our daughter's reaction to all this. While she wanted to go on a second audition, she had also made it clear that she did not want to "go to school" for acting-(which exactly coincided with my own thoughts)--she just wanted to "be" an actress. Of course, since then, we've forbidden her to listen to that radio station--or at least from writing down any phone numbers.

Comments

[Remainderman]

Blue Clinkers

You are my nominee for Anti-Stage Dad of the Year.

[Blue Clinkers]

I'd like to thank you and the other members of the Academy for that honor.

P.S. I made some slight revisions and tried to clean up the copy. Will have to tend to the other typos on the pingback.