The Episode of I Love Lucy With Ricky's Screentest

I watched it in 6th grade. In it Ricky is auditioning for the part of Don Juan. He has to practice his monologue, but every time he does it, it's so embarrassing. He can't cold read, he's nervous, the passion isn't there. Lucy tries to backseat direct him and he gets frustrated. At night he thinks he's alone, but she's creeping somewhere (kitchen?) and overhears him doing an amazing, passionate rendition of the piece. He just had to be alone. Most of us know we could do it alone.

My freshman year of college there was this super senior in the music department who made sort of a "deal" about not auditioning for 42nd Street because he was too busy working on his capstone. The practice rooms weren't ever super busy in the dungeon of the theatre building. Sometimes I would go on Friday evenings and practice playing Andrew McMahon songs. One Friday night down there I heard someone singing "The Lullaby of Broadway"--the lead actor's big number. But it wasn't the lead actor. It was that super senior giving it all he got in a ten foot by ten foot room alone.