ten red hen

I didn't get a directing job, one I really wanted. I had traveled to a remote Southern community for a three-day interview, and fallen in love with the place and the people and the project.

To be honest, I knew I wasn't going to get the job before my feet touched home soil. Apparently, my interviewers knew I wouldn't get the job before meeting me. The playwright confessed to me, the night before I flew home, that one of the organizers told her the male candidate would, in all likelihood, get hired, because they thought a man would be able to get more done in the community, a pretty hard-core old school phallocracy (with, to be fair, pockets of wonderful backwoods radicals). In hindsight, I should have known--one woman, upon meeting me, didn't even say hello--just hooted out, "well you don't look near old enough to've directed anything!"

Yes, my competition was twice my age, and a man. He's from a community grappling with similar problems of post-industrial depression. He was altogether the safer choice.

I knew I wouldn't get it, but the actual rejection phone call did rankle. The rarity of the opportunity, the novelty of the community and the organization sponsoring the project, makes the loss harder.