Audition 4: The Workshop

I have been militantly anti-workshop for as long as I can remember. There is a good chance, by way of disclosure, that my reasons for this are based in my unwillingness to spend money...on anything.
In principle, I'm against having to pay someone to see me. Of course, since I've stopped doing (shitty or otherwise) plays, the only opportunity for me to be seen is to be submitted by my agent and then to do well at the audition.
I need to increase my opportunities. I'm in a unique place right now. I have an agent who loves me, regardless of her status or ability to get me work. I have a manager who also believes in me, even though his juice is quite questionable. I employ him to get me more auditions. I have a commercial agency that believes in me, at least they act like they do. They send me out and I've just not brought the closure recently. I have a voice over agent that also seems to adore me.
The trouble is, as I see it, me. I'm not closing the deal. I don't know why. I'm in some rut.
Then I ran in to an actor at a job last year. He works for a workshop house and he believes in putting his face out there over and over and meeting as many levels of casting as he can.
And he works.
A lot.
So, I'm taking the money that I would be spending on acting classes, which were instrumental in bringing back my confidence in my abilities, and putting them here, where I hope they will better help.
At the audition we were paired up (this was last Sunday, the day before the day before I wrote this) semi-randomly. The "actress" I had to work with for my dramatic scene was, in a word, awful. And the only moment that she had on the stage that rang true was the one I had given her.
To my own detriment, I was soft and had cotton mouth. But I think I got my point across. As an actor I experience what is happening. I'm not just waiting for my line. I guess you might say that you can see me working, but that's not a pejorative. You can see what the other person says causing me to react. You can see me reacting. It's not broad, but it's real.
The second scene was a comic one. A simple scene that everyone had to do. What was fun for me was the adjustments. I liked my first choice, but the adjustments I was given were just knocked out of the park. And since I had to do it with 2 different performers I got to basically do the scene 5 times. Each time was different and no less good.
I was told that I would know on Monday if I got in.
I got the call yesterday. I did, indeed, get in. This is only a minor victory, since I expected to get in. This is the 4th workshop place in 20 years that I have "auditioned" for and I always get in. This is a testament less to my abilities than it is to their desire to have paying people in their program.
Nevertheless. This is the year of aggressive self-promotion and taking my career seriously.
So, we'll see where this leads.,