Lights, camera...painful auditions

It's Thursday, just one day closer to opening night of the American Idol, Season 7! Will there be a Sanjaya redux? Will Seattle be crowned the worst audition city yet again? (Randy famously trashed the city thusly: "'it must be something in the rain water,' and tried to explain the ineptness as 'wild, insane. Maybe depressed.'") While Simon may gripe about how painful is it to endure the dregs of the talent pool, people who work in casting ('sup!) usually drool over the especially horrid auditions. Those are the special dears, the neediest ones you can't just cut off on the phone when they check in two hours after the audition. It would be far too cruel. If you're mired behind the camera, the pathos is unstoppable.

Because, even though I'm in no actor, I've lived long enough to have auditioned for at least something--mostly in childhood or its twilight, usually for the parts of animals (I landed the skunk in Bambi) or robots (I was "Mechanico" in Raggedy-Ann), which had the fewest lines and required the cruelest costumes. These roles in particular were the results of a draconian group audition in which we were required to leap, crouch, sing or "sing," and walk like robots. I was heartened to learn (or was it disappointed?) that job interviews didn't follow suit.

So how about it--to take us through the weekend--are there classic audition stories out there you'd like to share?