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How to Handle Rejection and let it Propel You
(or How the High School Musical Cast List changed my life)
My middle daughter, Ava, tried out for Grease at Peekskill High School last week. She decided to go to Rizzo. She worked on all of her songs, she studied Stockard Channing in the movie for hours, she practiced being “tough”. She got a call back. She blew a note and yelled a curse word. She tortured herself for 24 hours after that. And then the cast list went up….and she is in the ensemble.
Feeling frustrated and sad, we got the text when she declared she may just “quit it all” and our response was “Don’t you dare”. I went on to explain all I knew to be true, “This is what being an actress is all about. This is what life is all about. This is what the Rolling Stones wrote a song about. You can’t always get what you want”.
And then I told her that story you tell you kids a thousand times in the hopes that one day they listen to you. Here’s what happened to me when I got cast as ensemble in 1994.
I was a junior at Cushing Academy. I was there on an academic scholarship and had to maintain a GPA while taking Pre-Cal, AP courses and Japanese. I was burning the candle from both ends, as I would the rest of my life. But one thing made all the stress go away. One time of the day made me the happiest and that was play rehearsal. Well…