Stepping into someone else's shoes to tell their story

Excerpt from an e-mail I received just after 10 p.m. tonight:

"Hi Everyone,

Here is the cast for the play:

Ms. Dee - Erika

Autumn - Ingrid

Adela - Ellie

Tamara - Maxine

Lulu - Kayla

Celeste - Danielle

Musician - Miranda

Our first rehearsal will be at Friday 7 p.m. The plan is to talk about the characters and read through the script as a full cast with a completed script..."

That's right: The "Erika" who will be playing Ms. Dee is me.

I actually got the part. Never saw that one coming.

I've lived in New York for nearly two-and-a-half years, and have tried many extracurricular activities (knitting class, painting class, basketball league, and book club to name a few) to not only have some fun, but find some friends. Although I didn't move here to pursue an acting career - like the 6.5 out of the 8.3 million New Yorkers did - now that I'm around it all the time, it's hard not to catch the acting bug.

A bunch of my friends are trying to make it as actors (no surprises there) and I live just a few blocks away from Broadway, which is home to some incredible shows. (As a Mother's Day gift for my mom and a birthday gift to myself, I again bought tickets to see Wicked. It was that good the first time around.)

When I told my mom that I got the part, she immediately asked: "So, is this play going to be right on Broadway?" and then laughed when I told her no, but that it would be shown in a theatre in the new Off-Off Broadway theatre district.

I've always had a fascination with acting, but never had the opportunity to do it in high school (I swear the high school drama teacher had it out for me!). So now that I do have this opportunity, I'm going to make the most of it. I have to say that I'm about as excited as I am nervous.

Now to start - gulp! - memorizing these pages upon pages of lines, which Maxine said was the easy part. She says the hard part is actually acting them out. As of now, I'm going to stick to my guns that acting isn't as hard as she makes it out to be.

Time will tell if I turn out to be totally wrong.