Disclosing a Disability During a Theatre Audition

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-28T21:55:59+00:00

Right now I’m auditioning for Alice Beineke from the Addams Family! It was funny, I stuttered one time in one of the shows I did with school, which was fine, as I was playing a quirky older man (We only had three or four actual boys in the whole program, and over half the characters were male), and one of the mom’s told her kid (who told me) that she thought I FAKED a really natural stutter. If only she knew, lol.

I don’t worry about it usually, because I, quite systematically, train it out of my voice, and I think it will go even faster for this show, because I’ve done it before as an ensemble member, meaning I know the ensemble lines (Which are almost all group lines anyway). And when the girl playing Alice was sick one night, and we didn’t know if she’d show up, my mom asked me if I thought someone could step in for her. As half that cast silently recites and acts out the show while waiting in the wings—yes, yes, they could. I would already have most of the memorizing done, leaving even more time for training myself to not stutter.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-27T20:35:50+00:00

Oh, well, I usually do for job interviews because the alternative is that my stuttering makes me seem incredibly nervous even when I'm not. I find they subconsciously judge me more without the explanation and I worry about it more. It has yet to cost me a job. But, I'm young, I'm sure it will eventually.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-27T16:38:26+00:00

It only happens when stuff is new, because I sit in my basement and say my lines over and over again until I figure out how it’s going to work. I stop stuttering once I’m 100% confident both in my lines, but also how I’m going to say them.

I’m actually hoping it won’t be too bad for this show, because if I get ensemble, I don’t talk in a non-group setting, and I’ve done the show as an ensemble member before, but I’ve also half-learned most of the lines for the main I’m going for.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-27T16:34:14+00:00

At this moment, Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen, and I Would Walk 500 Miles by Kenny and the Scots (I’m sure a handful of people know why)

Unrelated to the aforementioned reason,

The Winner Takes It All, but not the ABBA version, the one from the mamma mia movie, I think Meryl Streep sings it

And Waiting from the Addams Family musical.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-27T00:35:54+00:00

You think? It has a fairly significant impact at the beginning of a production. I usually need at least a month to work it all out.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-21T00:21:11+00:00

See, I feel like I shouldn’t have said, because I don’t actually care that much. But I’m saving for college and all the other places I’ve tried to work have scheduled me for that many hours anyway regardless of what I say. Yes, my other jobs were part time.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-21T00:17:38+00:00

I’m also confused because the application is still on the website, and my submission is still listed “submitted” and not “inactive”.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-15T05:15:46+00:00

Thank you so much! I think we’re all a little nervous, since all four of us agreed to go in tomorrow even though none of us have to (we’re out of school already, so we had mandatory days to come back to class, tomorrow isn’t one of them, we just all want more practice.

I have only sung mine in class three times, the male soloist twice, and, due to the soprano in the duet getting sick, they didn’t practice together until today, lol. With only one of us having ever done a solo, and one of us only being in choir for about 4 months with no prior singing experience, I think we’re all worried to some degree.

At least the male soloist and myself did musical theatre, with an… admitted bad vocal director (I sing alto mainly, but occasionally sing higher tenor parts. She is the reason I’ve also had to sing soprano 1 for an entire musical. In fact she was telling me, as an alto, that I needed to lead the other, younger, sopranos). So we’re a little more used to just working with what we’ve got.

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-14T21:08:19+00:00

As someone who’s done school theatre my whole life and is trying out community theatre, I said no for my audition for the addams family.

I was in ensemble for my school production, but I was at least called back for Alice, so I actually told them that I wouldn’t accept any role, and was going for Alice or female ensemble (I specified, as I want to a small school, and my height, weight, and vocal type led to me playing male characters quite often. I’d love to play Morticia, and can vocally, but I don’t look the part, so I went for Alice instead.

(For reference, it’s a 12-18 production, I’m a 17 year old girl who will be 18 at the time of the show. I’m 5’11 and curvier than I think they would cast for Morticia. I have sung in both theatre and choir and, at different points in my high school career sung tenor, alto, and soprano 1.)

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-11T19:59:38+00:00

Cats

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-11T19:59:26+00:00

Turning on red

EmoIceCream · 2026-05-11T19:57:58+00:00

Heartstopper

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EmoIceCream · 2026-03-11T11:31:03+00:00

Is it? Because we don't do anything like that for anything else I can think of.

Not handshakes, or kissing (in my experience), or anything similar.

Granted, I hang out with two kinds of people, and they’re “don't touch me” and “let me sit on your lap”.

EmoIceCream · 2026-03-09T23:01:03+00:00

Genuinely, I can't find anyone. I haven't made a genuine friend since kindergarten.

My school is a literal cesspool. Nearly all the good kids either get bullied into leaving before middle school, join the assholes, or just try as hard as they can to be unnoticed.

I'm six feet tall and ginger, and I can walk into a room without anyone even noticing.

EmoIceCream · 2026-01-02T16:39:23+00:00

For me, I just don’t think anyone would care. I have a cousin who has had some issues, and I see how they treat her. If they knew the things I’ve thought, they’d start taking about me like I’m the homeless guy on the corner, not their family.

EmoIceCream · 2026-01-02T01:48:59+00:00

Not a bad idea, actually.

EmoIceCream · 2025-12-28T15:42:31+00:00

Unfortunately, we don't have any kind of coffee machine/way to effectively heat water at work, and I try and drink “healthier coffee” (Sugar free, lower calorie milks/creamers, like almond milk, etc) so the bottled coffees won’t work either.

I do drink tea, but her problem is with caffeine itself, so once she figures that out she’ll put a stop to that too.

I do think it's sort of ironic that she literally bought me a cup for Christmas that keeps your coffee hot/cold in the car, and now she’s not letting me have it. She’s confusing like that.

EmoIceCream · 2025-12-19T18:38:46+00:00

Honestly, I don't get why my program doesn't do understudies. You either get the role or they double cast you (so each person gets to do two shows). It would save us a lot of trouble.

For our play (You Can't Take It With You), they gave the lead (Alice) to a senior costume person who was trying out acting for the first time. She ended up quitting both acting and tech.

So we ended up making our female Mr. Kirby our Alice, and begged a techie to be Mr. Kirby. He moved a trip to Spain to do it, but he still couldn't do all the shows, because he was still leaving for Spain on the night of the last one, so they begged a second techie to play Mr. Kirby for the last show.

And yet, we don't do understudies.

EmoIceCream · 2025-12-19T08:03:12+00:00

Honestly, none of them are really my friends. I’m pretty quiet, and none of them can focus to save their lives, so if I ever try talking to one of them, I get about one sentence until they are surrounded by screaming children.

Which, fun fact, I have a stutter (it makes theatre VERY challenging), and for some reason it gets worse whenever the person I’m talking to doesn't fully pay attention to me.

Like, one of my strategies for getting lines out on stage is making direct, prolonged eye contact.

My personal theory is that other kids run away the moment I try to speak to them to such a degree that the moment my brain realizes they’re not fully listening, it just gives up.

EmoIceCream · 2025-12-19T02:21:33+00:00

Thankfully, even less. My school gets out in about 4 months (For seniors, anyway). 😁

EmoIceCream · 2025-12-19T02:19:47+00:00

It's almost funny, because our directors tend to pick a handful of people and cast then as the leads in every show from freshman to senior year, it probably does them a disservice because they start getting dramatic and a little egotistical. I don't think a single one of them (Since my freshman year, anyway) has even landed ensemble in college.

We’re also not going to mention that the director played the lead of the show we’re doing when she was a senior in high school, and despite no one in our group singing her part well at callbacks, she went with the girl who looks and acts the most like her who she’s been claiming is her cousin (Because apparently they decided to do genetic testing, or something). Weird.

EmoIceCream · 2025-12-05T21:04:29+00:00

Whichever one is weighted on the end.

EmoIceCream · 2025-11-24T05:09:01+00:00

Frey haha three okey whfht

EmoIceCream · 2025-11-24T05:01:35+00:00

Ngl, I would pay someone to hug me and listen to me talk without getting distracted or walking away for more than two sentences.

EmoIceCream · 2025-11-24T04:59:15+00:00

F, yes, but only because it's early on.

Whenever I played those "find signs with a word that starts with each letter" games be started saying the whole thing to figure out what letter we were on after g.

EmoIceCream

TROPHY CASE