On Making Your Own Game: A Parable

The Audition

At the end of August, my ten-year-old daughter and a group of her friends auditioned together for a youth production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. On the application, where it asked what part she was trying out for, I started to write, “Comes with some theater camp, and lots of dance experience, with a big personality, and real stage presence. Wants to play Belle, but would accept any appropriate part.”

I tried filling out the application without my daughter seeing, because I knew she wouldn’t like to entertain the possibility that she might not get the lead, and because I didn’t want to jinx her audition. But her child radar was as sharp as ever that day, and after she questioned me closely about what I was writing on the application, she flatly declared, “But I want to be Belle; I don’t want to accept any other part.”

“Well,” I explained to her, in words to this effect, “the competition is really stiff here, and a lot of the girls are older than you are and have already performed in a few productions. Maybe we should keep the door open on this application, so that just in case you don’t get the lead, you can still be in the play, with your other friends.”

Big Dreams 

She didn’t seem to like what I said much, but mostly shrugged off my advice, because there was no doubt in her mind that she already had the part of Belle, in the bag. Later that day, she slammed out her singing rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (her audition piece), without a trace of nerves, and with a strong, clear voice. I thought that she had as good a chance as any other brown-haired, brown-eyed girl, who had been dreaming of playing Belle, since she was very small, in her first Disney dress-up costume.

Reality-Check

Then, she got the news. She won the part of “Milk Maid,” and her other friends were playing opposite Gaston, as “Silly Girls.” She was pretty disappointed.

To encourage her, I explained, as her acting coach had to all the girls, that there had been at least a dozen girls who could have played the part of Belle, and that the decision was a hard one. I also told her that the girls who came back each season seemed to move up the acting ranks, and that if she did a good job with Milk Maid and liked acting, then maybe she would get a higher part next time. She still didn’t like it, but went along with things. “Maybe someone will drop out,” she wished out loud.

After the first practice, she found out that her friends, “the Silly Girls” were “Supporting Leads,” and that as “Milk Maid,” she was only a member of the regular cast. “Well, isn’t it kind of cool that you have the only Milk Maid role and don’t have to share the spotlight with anyone else?” I encouraged. “There’s another Milk Maid,” she shot back,” and “the Silly Girls have more lines and songs than we do,” she added. “Well, please don’t repeat this to your friends, but would you really want your stage debut to be as a “Silly Girl?”  I asked, still trying to make her feel better.”They’ll probably have prettier costumes than we will, too,” she dramatically sighed.

Straight Talk

The next practice she was still obviously unhappy.  I talked straight with her. “Look, we’re investing a lot of family time in all these rehearsals. If you’re not happy and really want to quit, please do it now, not later, when it will be even harder to fill your role. But realize that if you really love something, you’ll keep on doing it, and you’re willing to work at it, for its own sake. Remember the teenage girl in Disney’s Ice Princess? Remember how she had to learn how to figure skate in the little kids’ class? And how she worked all those hours to pay for her lessons? And one of the Silly Girls is your best friend, by the way, and she would have been the first to congratulate you, if it had been the other way. You can be sad for yourself, but happy for her at the same time. Now, what’s it going to be? Do you want to quit?” “No,” she finally conceded, with a slight sniff, and a sulk. 

A Second Chance

The next week she came home from practice, transfigured with excitement. “The acting coach asked me to try out for an extra part that came up.” “Oh?” I asked. “Yes, she wants me to try out for the part of Enchantress.” ”That’s exciting. Is anyone else trying out?” I probed, with silent apprehension. “Yes, all the Silly Girls are trying out, too, and there is a dance we’ll all do together as fairies, and then only one of us will be the Enchantress, who turns the Prince into a Beast.”

Oh, God, I thought to myself. She better get this, or I’m going to hear about it. 

Success

I remember seeing her at the Enchantress audition. There was this peanut of a girl (my daughter is petite for her age and about a year younger than the other kids), standing in the middle of the stage, brimming over with excitement and confidence. She didn’t doubt for a moment that she would get this part. And when the phone call came, and she found out that she was selected Enchantress, she told me later, “Now, I’m in a Supporting Lead, too, and I get to wear the most costumes, because the Enchantress has the old hag costume, and the beautiful Enchantress costume, plus I still have the Milk Maid costume.” “That’s nice,” I congratulated her. “Plus, there would be no Beauty and the Beast, without the Enchantress. She places the spell on the beast in the first place.” “That’s a very important role,” I agreed.

Not Settling

But the story of my daughter’s faith in herself doesn’t end here. At the mall one night, we were walking past the Disney Store, when she dragged me in and asked me to buy her a Belle costume to wear this Halloween. “Isn’t she a little old to play dress up?” my seven-year-old asked me, in a conspiratorial whisper. “I think she’s still working through something…” I agreed with my younger daughter, “but let’s not take this away from her,” I suggested.

At theater practice that week, by chance my older daughter’s acting coach heard that she was going to be Belle for Halloween and asked if she would like to march in the city’s annual Halloween Kids’ Parade, passing out brochures about the upcoming Beauty and the Beast performances. My daughter was only too glad to volunteer for the parade.

Making Her Own Game

And so it was, about a week ago, that she walked through crowded streets in New England, decked out as Belle, marching past hundreds of people. Only a handful of other kids (most of them older), from the theater program had showed up to march. Even though the older girl who was playing the part of Belle was there, my daughter was one of the few kids dressed up, and she was the only girl, wearing a Belle costume. For all purposes, she was Belle that night.

My husband and I watched her amidst the other kids, in all her Belle glory, and looked at each other at the same time, with the same thought. “There she is, being Belle, and not caring at all, if she’s the only one who knows it,” my husband observed. 

As the Milk Maid and Enchantress, she is still learning how to be a team player, and how important it is sometimes to pay dues in life. But she never stopped being Belle. The next day, when the phone calls started rolling in from family members, and we learned that our little Belle was on local television’s coverage of the parade, I felt more proud of her than if she had received the actual part. For you see, she wasn’t playing make believe anymore. As Chris Brogan, best-selling co-author of Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust would probably agree, she was making her own game.

Postscript

After the parade, my daughter had a bunch of extra promotional flyers. On her own initiative, she started walking up and down lines of parked cars in a restaurant lot, on the way back to our own. What a small, determined figure, she looked to me, all bedecked as Belle, placing flyers on cars. I laughed when she startled a man, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, just minding his own business, and probably not expecting a visit at his window, from a miniature princess that night. “Mom,” she explained afterwards very seriously, “I’m advertising.”

Photo Credit, Loren Javier