The Rent audition went swimmingly. Frankly, with the impression I left on the audition panel, I don't care if I'm called back on Wednesday or not; they made it quite clear they liked me without saying "Wow, you did a really great job, Ms. Chenoweth. We'll get back to you on that part in Grey's Anatomy."

Long story short with the audition itself: I thought the director looked familiar, and he was - hence the "Wait, you're THAT Robert? Where have you been?" when he asked about the five parts they left space for on the application. Ironically, I was not the youngest music director in the room, either - that was the accompanist. Creepy.

But the awkwardness? Oh, it knew no bounds. I'd say, of the 50 or so people who showed up, I went to high school with 10 of them (NONE of whom appreciated my company), did shows/honor choirs with another 15, competed in speech and debate at a college level with another 8 or so, and had one of them awkwardly hit on me for years in high school cross-x debate. Hot. The few who knew they should have recognized me were polite, but the ones that knew me right away turned ghost white, then whispered real loud to their friends "is THAT Robert?" The best was the one who said "It can't be, he's not a big fat fuck."

Yeah, the significant changes in appearance (anywhere from just shy of too big to feel comfortable making fun of to "he must have an eating disorder if HE got that thin" which is about 15 pounds from where I am now and is really just on the cusp of average body) over the past 5 years don't exactly make me the easiest person to pick out in a crowd. That, and the years of constantly changing haircuts (buzzed, long, spiked, parted, slicked, greased, moussed, emo'd, hipstered, and current clean professional yet slightly edgy) and colors (everything but tennis-ball green, white, and bleached blonde because I was dumb enough to do those colors but not dumb enough to burn my scalp for the true extremes of lightness) and radically different wardrobes (I've been nerd, geek, prep, goth, scenester, hipster, emo, business casual, young inventor, thespian, hot man-slut, and current "damn he look good" with a bit of edge). Whatever it takes to throw all my damn competition off. Which really doesn't exist, anyway. I looked just old enough that they didn't ask for ID in the audition room and will probably only be called back if they want all this good stuff for ensemble. Honest livin', folks. And my students will come to mock me mercilessly and ask me what I did wrong at the auditions to not get Mark. Everybody wins.

By the way, thanks to the hottest slut on the web (quite pretending, we all know the truth, Michael K.) over at DListed, I will now tap the Michael Jackson topic. Apparently, his ghost might be haunting Neverland Ranch.

Peace.