My Cousin Sebastian
Did I ever tell you about my cousin Sebastian? I doubt it, because it's pretty funny now, but it was so embarrassing at the time that I didn't let myself think of it for years and years.
I'll spare you the tale of the awkward, unpopular kid who Finds A Home In The Theatre. All you really need to know is that I was 14 and there was a local director upon whom I had a massive crush. He was cute, but part of the attraction was also that he was one of the first openly gay men I'd ever met. I went and tried out for a play he was casting, but before the audition was even over I knew I wouldn't get a part. I was actually a pretty sucky actor, and gave it up a year or so later.
As fate would have it, there were two days of auditions, and I'd gone on the first. I really really wanted a part, not so much because I liked the play (I have no idea what it was now) as because I wanted to see the director every day and bask in his gayness. So I decided to go back and audition again ... FOR THE MALE ROLES.
The idea of cross-gender casting is hardly radical, but I just had to take it a step further. I would actually go to the audition as a man. Not a boy, a man. With a mustache. Surely everyone would be fooled; I'd often been taken for a boy before puberty hit. I probably even speculated that the director (in his thirties) would fall in love with me. So I invented my cousin Sebastian. (Yes, in fact I did get the name from Brideshead Revisited; you wanna make something of it???)
My hair was already short. I don't remember what I did with my boobs, but I thought the mustache was a pretty good one. I made it out of real theatrical "hair," matched it carefully to my hair color, and glued it on with real theatrical spirit gum. It was thick and luxuriant. Unfortunately, it did not look very convincing on my 14-year-old girl's face. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until I arrived at the audition and "introduced" myself to the director. He was very cool -- his eyes widened slightly when he first saw me, but otherwise he totally went along with it -- but from my first glance into his face it all came crashing down.
It wasn't in me to run away, though. Maybe now, but not then. "I think you know my cousin," I said.
"Is that Poppy?" he inquired, deadpan.
"Uh, yes."
Unfortunately (that makes three), my male audition was just as crappy as my female one. I don't know if the director thought I was nuts and took pity on me or knew transgender people or maybe even admired me a little for brazening it out or what, but he was very, very kind and never mentioned it, though I saw him several more times before he was offered a good theatrical job somewhere else and left the area.
I went through several more phases of dressing androgynously over the years, but never again did I actually try to look male until now. And you know, even at the time, even as agonizingly embarrassed over the thing as only a 14-year-old can be, even with the cheesy mustache, I had to admit it felt damn good to be Sebastian.
I'll spare you the tale of the awkward, unpopular kid who Finds A Home In The Theatre. All you really need to know is that I was 14 and there was a local director upon whom I had a massive crush. He was cute, but part of the attraction was also that he was one of the first openly gay men I'd ever met. I went and tried out for a play he was casting, but before the audition was even over I knew I wouldn't get a part. I was actually a pretty sucky actor, and gave it up a year or so later.
As fate would have it, there were two days of auditions, and I'd gone on the first. I really really wanted a part, not so much because I liked the play (I have no idea what it was now) as because I wanted to see the director every day and bask in his gayness. So I decided to go back and audition again ... FOR THE MALE ROLES.
The idea of cross-gender casting is hardly radical, but I just had to take it a step further. I would actually go to the audition as a man. Not a boy, a man. With a mustache. Surely everyone would be fooled; I'd often been taken for a boy before puberty hit. I probably even speculated that the director (in his thirties) would fall in love with me. So I invented my cousin Sebastian. (Yes, in fact I did get the name from Brideshead Revisited; you wanna make something of it???)
My hair was already short. I don't remember what I did with my boobs, but I thought the mustache was a pretty good one. I made it out of real theatrical "hair," matched it carefully to my hair color, and glued it on with real theatrical spirit gum. It was thick and luxuriant. Unfortunately, it did not look very convincing on my 14-year-old girl's face. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until I arrived at the audition and "introduced" myself to the director. He was very cool -- his eyes widened slightly when he first saw me, but otherwise he totally went along with it -- but from my first glance into his face it all came crashing down.
It wasn't in me to run away, though. Maybe now, but not then. "I think you know my cousin," I said.
"Is that Poppy?" he inquired, deadpan.
"Uh, yes."
Unfortunately (that makes three), my male audition was just as crappy as my female one. I don't know if the director thought I was nuts and took pity on me or knew transgender people or maybe even admired me a little for brazening it out or what, but he was very, very kind and never mentioned it, though I saw him several more times before he was offered a good theatrical job somewhere else and left the area.
I went through several more phases of dressing androgynously over the years, but never again did I actually try to look male until now. And you know, even at the time, even as agonizingly embarrassed over the thing as only a 14-year-old can be, even with the cheesy mustache, I had to admit it felt damn good to be Sebastian.
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