Friend in Common/Awful Audition

Today's audition was of the commercial variety. (Faithful readers know how much I loathe commercial auditions.) The maker of a high-tech medical gizmo wants video of a spokesperson inviting medical professionals into their booth at trade shows. Since I am not currently a medical professional, and never have been, I spent a while googling all the medical jargon and the gizmo. I figured out what was what in the script and memorized the 3/4 page of copy.

I showed up for the audition today feeling fine. While I waited for my turn, I noticed the casting lady eyeballing me every time she came out into the waiting area. This is a new casting lady that I'd never met before. When I got into the actual audition room, the casting lady introduced herself. She said I looked soooo familiar to her and that my name was also familiar. We spent a few minutes figuring out that we have a fancy producer/director friend in common. This fancy friend forwarded my headshot and acting résumé to the casting lady a few months ago. Thanks so much, fancy friend!

Then I started my audition for the medical gizmo. I stumbled over my words and said the multi-letter, multi-number product name incorrectly. I got all kinds of nervous and generally gave the worst audition of my life. The casting lady was super-nice about it and gave me a second chance, which was also awful. By the time she said, "cut", for my audition tape, all I could do was smile at her sheepishly and say, "I'm sorry." She smiled and said not to worry about it. She said she would tell our fancy friend that she finally got to meet me. Great... I hope she doesn't tell him how utterly dreadful my audition was. Blerg.