By Seth Rudetsky
23 Nov 2009

On Wednesday I had a commercial audition and on the way out I was reminded why kids should not go into the business. A mother was walking out with her four-year-old daughter and said to her, "Downstairs I have a surprise waiting for you!" The girl looked thrilled and the mom suddenly focused in on her and said, "Now, that's the face you should have made at the audition. Did you make that face?" The girl nodded. Then the mom followed with a fervent, "Are you sure????" OY! That's the kind of horrible dialogue that I have in my head after an audition, but it's my unhealthy voice talking to me, not my actual mother!

Speaking of my family, my sister Nancy who lives in Virginia had a computer-age meltdown. Last week she decided to send a funny e-mail to her Rabbi because they're friends and they're always sending funny stuff back and forth. He sent back a response and instead of using the internet abbreviation of LOL or ROFL he wrote UILillOyO! She was mortified that she wasn't cool enough to know the newest lingo and tried to figure it out. She assumed that the "U" was probably "you," the "I" referred back to the Rabbi, then "LILL" must be a sassier version of "LOL" and the "Oy" made it Jewish-y. But she had no idea what the final "O" was. A smiley face without the smile? She felt too un-hip to ask him what it meant, but after two hours she finally bit the bullet and wrote him an e-mail asking him what it stood for. Well, turns out, it wasn't the newest abbreviation for Southern Jews, it was an example of what happens when doesn't lock their keyboard. That's right, the rabbi had his phone in his pocket and while he walked, random letters were pushed by the movement of his pants…including the send button!

Fascinatingly, his particular gait managed to press just the right letters to get "oy" in the mix. It's a miracle!

On Saturday we saw In the Next Room or the vibrator play. We totally enjoyed it and thought Laura Benanti was fantastic. It's so hard to go from being a musical theatre performer to doing plays and both Michael Cerveris and Laura have done it. Brava. After the show we saw Michael backstage carrying his big cute mutt. His dog is 15 and has some trouble navigating the stairs so Michael carries him up and down. Very sweet! Speaking of dogs, we're busy cleaning up dog hair from all of our dogs and trying to frantically unpack because we've invited people over for Thanksgiving. What were we thinking? Well, I'll write all about it next week. Hopefully I'll have such a humorous take on it that you'll want to say UILillOy O! Peace out!

Seth Rudetsky is the host of "Seth's Big Fat Broadway" on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and the author of "The Q Guide to Broadway" and the novel "Broadway Nights." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals and hosts the BC/EFA benefit weekly interview show Seth's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama every Thursday at 6 PM. He can be contacted by visiting www.sethrudetsky.com.