It's Showtime!

Five auditions in one week. That's alot of driving through Orange County to LA. Everyday after school we packed up the car with snacks, a pee jar just in case (gotta be prepared in traffic!), DSI games, grabbed the headshots and resume. His little brother comes with and naps or watches a movie. Bodee prepares in the car. I am a showbiz Mom.
Which doesn't mean anything except I drive my son to auditions just as a soccer Mom would. I encourage him with smiles before he walks into the audition and I high five him on his way out. The experience can be daunting sometimes, however, it's not for the lazy.

First, there is the last minute emails and calls from his agent, hardly ever even a twenty four hour notice.It takes some finagling to clear the calendar for four hours to get to and from an audition in LA and still have everything in life handled. Yes, I will take a Super Mom tee shirt, thank you very much. Sometimes it means taking Bodee out of school an hour early...not so super you may think. Good thing he is an A student.
Then there is the drive up, almost two hours in traffic, and the way home is a guarantee of a stop and go sea of red tail lights. Finding parking, I feel like a turkey buzzard looking for scraps. I circle around a few times, swoop in and pray to the parking gods that I won't get towed for parking in the grocery store lot or bless the world when I find metered parking less than three blocks away. Bodee skips and runs along the cracked sidewalks of LA to the casting lounge, excited to get there. At the audition the room is packed with bodies of curious children and tired parents. The kids play their DSI's or lean over and talk about their games together. There is always the boy with the afro, the cute blond, the stocky boy, maybe even a redhead. They are all cute, but of course, I think none cuter than mine.

There are usually several auditions going on and gaggles of gorgeous girls and shockingly sharp and good looking men rehearse their lines. Real characters dressed in bike messenger outfits and sweating in cowboy chaps, lean against walls and shift back and forth impatiently. I could be impatient too. I could be annoyed by the traffic or the way the casting assistants yell out names. I could criticize and make life miserable for my son. But I don't. Because I am inspired by his gumption. I am inspired by his willingness to be up for anything. I am inspired that when asked by a recruiter if he wanted to be on TV or movies, he said YES and followed through with acting classes.

Rather than survive it, I create that it is exciting with him, we play rock paper scissors or try to guess what the improv lines might be. We talk about giving it 100% and his face lights up. Bodee is one cute face of many and we have no idea what they are looking for. Will this be the one?
Then his name is being called...usually within a few minutes...and he is walking up to the door along with three other boys. They line up, the door opens and they walk inside a room. I never see who is in the room, and my Mommy Tiger instincts really had to give up a lot to get over that one. I hear the boys shouting their lines through the door, usually they are just playing, and then within a few minutes he is out again, smiling and satisfied. "I did 100% Mom!" he says.

One time, he went into the room for directions with only adults. It was a pizza commercial and he was the only child at that time of the call. There was Bodee, surrounded by towering adults, confident and ready to go. I was amazed by my son. It takes courage to do that, to generate with strangers in a moments notice, to put yourself under scrutiny and to "turn it on" and go with the flow of directions from a complete stranger from second to second. He doesn't ask about the jobs later, whether he got them or not, he is too busy playing and doing what he is doing in the moment. There is no disappointment or regret. He just lives in the moment and enjoys it.

I would love for Bodee to have success in all his endeavors....and I know he might not. He has booked two commercials in the past year, but there are no guarantees for the future. I don't know if he will ever book anything, ever again. What I do know, is that he is successful in being courageous. He is successful in being creative and energetic. He is fulfilled by having confidence and determination. He is the kind of person, that when they say "It's Showtime!", he steps through his fear and into being an expression of himself.
He inspires me.

Zen Honeycutt