At the solicitation of one of my favorite Florida Stage colleagues, Jonathan Wemette (and considering all the great people here, he's got some stiff competition), I'm going to give you the story of how the Atlanta girl made her way to Florida Stage.

Early last summer I sat down with myself and had a little talk.  It went something like…
Me:  Bethany, you've been working pretty steadily over the past couple of years. I:  Steadily-ish, I guess.  I've been pretty lucky. 
Me:  This season, you need to work though.  I mean, you really need to work at making sure you're working.
I:  Awww… come on, dude.  I'm doing what I can.   Me:  No.  If this is what you're gonna do with your life, then you do it right.

I thought the conversation went pretty well, considering the parties.  Then I sat down and listed all the possible shows that I would be called to audition for in Atlanta.  There were a couple of slots with several good possibilities and a few slots with only a couple of possibilities.  There was one slot, however, which held nothing for me.  The holiday slot.  What to do, what to do…

Meanwhile, my friend Cara and I had been working at trying to figure out this crazy business.  We decided one day to blitz our headshots to a bunch of theatres in Florida and South Carolina.  It was a long day of stapling and licking and trying to figure out the right words to say to promote yourself without sounding like you're totally into yourself.  I submitted about a dozen different headshots and within the next few days my inbox was FLOODED with… two responses.  One of them, thankfully, was from none other than Jonathan Wemette encouraging me to come down for Florida Stage's general auditions later that summer.

I kept an eye on the season Florida Stage had announced and as I was considering making the 9 hour drive down for the general audition, I noticed they had also scheduled some auditions specifically for a new play called "The Storytelling Ability of a Boy" (which happened to fall during that empty "holiday spot").  Jonathan was nice enough to extend an invitation to the "Storytelling" callbacks, instead of having to come to the general auditions first.  I told him I was very interested in that and he e-mailed me a copy of the script.  I knew it would be a risk, so I wanted to make sure it was something I really liked first.

My husband, Eric, who is also an actor was checking out some flights as we decided it would end up being a little cheaper to fly.  I read the script and Eric asked me what I thought of it.  "I think I'm kind of in love with it" I told him.  So he booked the flight.

I flew out of Atlanta early on a Monday morning.  We had found a cheap, discount car for me to rent from the airport.  I drove down 95 toward the theatre with all my maps spread out on the passenger seat.  I stopped at a gas station just up the road from Florida Stage and changed into my audition clothes and sat in the car looking over my highlighted lines one last time.

I was the first one at the theatre and couldn't get in.  For a moment I just knew I had gotten my dates mixed up.  But soon enough, some guy named Andrew Rosendorf came to the door.  He told me there were some new scenes to be read and gave me a bunch of papers.  They turned out to be the wrong papers but he fixed it eventually and we've since talked through that incident and are really trying to move on.  We're getting there.  (Okay, fine, he's also one of my new favorite people.)

I finally got to go in the theatre and read scenes with a bunch of different actors.  Everyone was super nice even though they seemed to think I was a little weird for flying from Atlanta.  But they kept letting me read and Lou asked me to try some different things and I did my best to do what he asked and Carter-the-playwright shook my hand (I love playwrights) and I even got to read with Jonathan one time!

Then I was off again.  I stopped at the beach for an hour on my way to the airport and sat in the sand and splashed in the clear water and felt very happy with my adventure.  When Eric picked me up from the airport, I told him I was glad I did it and that even if this one doesn't work out I felt like they might call me in for something else later on.

Days go by.  These days that go by after an important audition, they are the worst days of an actor's life.  Every time your phone rings, your heart starts beating wildly and you run around your whole living room with your hands in the air before you pick up.  And then it is just your neighbor asking you to get her mail while she's gone.  But then maybe 5 days later, just when I had begun to chalk it up to "a good experience," Nan Barnett (another new favorite person) calls me.  She had spent the last 5 days calling everyone on my resume (lesson: never lie on your resume) to make sure that I wasn't a crazy person, and I guess most of them said I wasn't… so that meant I could have the job!

Phew.  So sometimes risks pay off.  Because here I am in South Florida for the winter with amazing people all around me, feeling artistically stuffed to the gills, and working.