fat auditions When my appendix ruptured during the run of a musical, I gave the remainder of of the "orchestra fats" tour (about 6 more weeks) to the conductor/keyboard player who saved the day by stepping in.  A community theater I'm familiar with but have yet to work for hired me to help them with auditions for singer/actors today and tomorrow. Today I acted as a musical director, mostly watching the auditions with a resting bitch look on my face, and tomorrow will be the same but with no pianist so I'll have to play their songs in addition to looking arrogant and judgmental. Working for this group is sort of my audition as well because they lost their original musical director and might want to hire me. I don't do very much community theater because it doesn't usually pay very well and tests my patience, but sometimes it can be  rewarding for a variety of reasons--unusual talent, people in a position to hire you later, a highly regarded theater or director, blah blah blah. Most of the ensemble has already been cast. This weekend's auditions are for the leads of the show. There are three main character roles (2 women, 1 man) which require major vocal chops, strong acting skills, and good looks. Slender, beautiful people with talent and charisma.  This is "Community Theater" so I've lower my expectations for the overall quality of the audition pool, but HOLY SHIT, all I saw for the first two hours this morning were fat people--mostly 40-50 lbs overweight and maybe 20% of the herd was even bigger.  Consistently employed women in this area of the acting world are usually a little UNDERWEIGHT and very fit because of the stamina and, well, FITNESS that is required. When I peeked in the lobby (where they wait for their turn to sing), I saw only 5 or 6 human sized ladies in a sea of fat. I've never seen this many fat women at an audition, even in community theater. Even for a "Hairspray" audition. And this is for the leads! When we took a bathroom break and had a chance to discuss some of the strongest contenders, I was shocked they were considering ANY of the women we'd just auditioned. We heard a couple of powerhouse voices, but they were too fat to be believable in the roles. I pointed this out, saying something quasi-diplomatic like, "It's going to be tough to find a male romantic lead who'll look okay next to either of those girls you like" and the director tells me that they've sorta kinda precast the man and he's a bigger guy. Turns out I know him. And he's not a "bigger guy", he's fat. Really fat. And not a strong singer, in fact the singing is out of his vocal range now that I think of it. And he's not a romantic lead. He's a character actor and usually does comedy side-kick roles. But they're auditioning men tomorrow anyway just in case they find someone they like better during the open call. Two more hours of auditions and out of 5 slender women only one had a good enough voice and they thought she was too tall for the fat guy they're considering. Oh! And they're supposedly borrowing/renting some of the costumes from another theater. A theater that didn't cast fat people in their production of this show. So if they hire fatties they'll have to build costumes from scratch.  I don't know if they'll offer me this job, but I can't. I can't vocal direct musical theater ballads being sung by romantic leading men who look like Jack Black. I just can't. Tonight I'll probably have nightmares about the fat Disney princesses we keep seeing now. Theater and the entertainment industry were once my safe place in a world of obesity and now it's "Fats! The Musical".