Disappointment
Disappointment in life is inevitable. It’s something I tell my acting students all the time. We can’t control anything in an audition room except what we’re presenting; the rest is up to the people making the decisions.
I’ve experienced it numerous times, and we’re always told it’s supposed to help us grow in some shape or form. Not getting a role I auditioned for. Publishers rejecting a manuscript. A film of mine not being accepted into a festival. It’s been a constant throughout my life, and apparently one of those things you’re supposed to get better at handling the more it happens.
I’m not sure that’s true.
It happens in the job search as well. It’s no secret that I’ve made a pretty big career change over the past few years. To be honest, I began looking before I ever left my previous job. At the time, I thought I wanted to follow another passion and see how I could utilize my marketing skills, storytelling, and filmmaking for a nonprofit. I applied to many and even got interviews. There were a few where I left thinking I had the job. And why wouldn’t I? They were showing me an office, speaking to me as if I were already part of the team, and in one case bringing me back for multiple interviews. Only to be disappointed in the end.
You always wonder who came along after you and wowed them in a way you were unable to. You don’t want to assume it’s your age. You don’t want to wonder if your resume makes perfect sense to you but looks strange to someone who wants a straight line from Point A to Point B. So you tell yourself someone else walked into that room and was simply a better fit.
And listen, I get that. I’m the first person to tell a friend auditioning for one of my shows that I will never guarantee them a role. Someone else could walk into the room and blow my socks off, and I’m going to give that person the part. I’ve sat on that side of the table enough times to understand that sometimes a decision isn’t about what one person did wrong. Someone else was simply right for what you needed.
That doesn’t make the sting less painful.
Then last year I got a teaching gig and my attention shifted. Now, let’s just stop for a moment and praise the people who hired me last fall. I showed up on that Zoom, an older man with years of arts experience, a decade of touring schools as a visiting author, but no classroom experience outside of following my mom into hers when I was a kid. Somehow those two people looked at all of that and thought outside the box. They hired me and gave me an incredible gift because it turned out I loved teaching.
Since then, I’ve continued looking for theatre teaching jobs. And yes, I kept applying for them while subbing. Some were places where I could even use names in my cover letters of people they knew because, as I’ve learned, the education and theatre worlds are much smaller than we think.
Crickets. No response. And deep down, I get it. No student teaching on my resume. Older dude with 20 years in arts management. And while the state has certified me to teach, I’m still six months away from having that elusive bachelor’s degree. My resume makes perfect sense when I explain how all the pieces connect. I’m not sure it always does when someone looks at it for 30 seconds.
So I had this fall planned out. I get to direct a middle school play. I worked so hard on college all summer that I’ll be starting my final capstone in December. And I knew I could continue subbing since I’m signed up at several different schools. It wasn’t necessarily the final destination, but I had a plan and I was good with it.
Then something unexpected happened. Friends let me know about a school looking for someone to teach theatre, and I jumped to get my name in. Emails went back and forth. There was a phone interview followed quickly by an in-person interview. And it was one of those interviews. The kind where you start to think maybe these people are looking at your resume differently. Maybe they see the benefit of hiring someone with life experience. Maybe they understand there are skills you bring into a classroom that don’t necessarily fit neatly into the usual boxes.
I really seemed to hit it off with the people in the room. Because the start of school was right around the corner, I realized my life could be changing very quickly, and I started getting excited. Probably too excited. They told me they’d get back to me ASAP and we’d talk pay, so I did what I always do when my brain gets hold of something.
I started planning.
I read the fall play they had planned and created a schedule to see how I could make it work with the other show I’d already committed to directing. I looked at the courses I’d potentially be teaching and started creating curriculum. I had lesson plans mapped out for the first trimester. I started figuring out how all the pieces could fit together because, in my head, this suddenly felt very possible.
I was ready.
Then silence.
Twenty-four hours became forty-eight, and that familiar feeling of disappointment started drifting over me. Like the clients I’ve coached through this exact moment, suddenly I was there as well. You replay the entire interview. You remember something you said and wonder if you should have answered differently. You analyze a facial expression that probably meant absolutely nothing. You wonder who walked into the room after you with more teaching experience, a more traditional resume, youthful enthusiasm, or maybe just the exact thing they were looking for.
And then you see the job posted again in social media groups.
That’s when the disappointment changes because the story you’ve been telling yourself was that someone else walked into the room and was simply a better fit. That’s a story I understand. I’ve been on the other side of the audition table. Sometimes somebody walks in and they’re simply right for the part.
But apparently they were still looking, and somehow that stung differently.
It immediately made me think of the actors I coach. Someone auditions for a commercial and feels great about it. Maybe they even get a callback. They allow themselves to think, I might actually book this. Then a few days later they open one of the audition apps and there it is again. The same breakdown. The same role. They’re still looking.
And suddenly that actor is wondering what they did wrong.
I’ve talked clients through that moment. I’ve told them they don’t know what happened on the other side of the table. I’ve told them casting isn’t always about who is the most talented person in the room. Sometimes you simply aren’t what someone had in mind. Sometimes they don’t even know what they have in mind until it walks through the door. The only thing you could control was what you brought into the room that day, and if you walked out feeling good about what you did, you have to hold onto that.
All very sensible advice when you’re the coach. It’s considerably harder when you’re the one refreshing your email.
Maybe that’s the part of disappointment we don’t talk about enough. We’re always in such a hurry to turn it into a lesson. Everything happens for a reason. The right thing will come along. One door closes, another one opens. Maybe all of that is true, but sometimes disappointment just hurts. Sometimes you wanted something, you allowed yourself to picture it, and you started rearranging the pieces of your life to make room for it. Then you’re left with the realization that as much as you could picture yourself there, maybe they couldn’t.
I still don’t know what really happened in this particular situation. The rejection email that eventually came another 48 hours after the reposting doesn’t really tell you what happened behind the scenes. Do they ever?
But I still want to remember the feeling that made me sit down and write this Substack. The next time one of my clients calls after an audition they were sure went well, only to discover that casting is still looking, I’ll probably give them much of the same advice I’ve always given them. You did your work. You showed them what you could do. You cannot control what happens on the other side of that table.
I’ll just understand the silence after I say it a little better now. It’s easier to give advice when you’re not the one waiting for the phone to ring.
