Well…FINALLY…today I auditioned for my first gig in New York City. Actually in Brooklyn – but it still counts, right? It’s an Off-Off-Broadway theater with a great reputation and looking at the season line up I’m really impressed at the show’s they’ve done and are planning to do.
The show I auditioned for is the musical, Side Show. Side show is a beautiful musical about two conjoined twins who were a Vaudeville in the 1930's - I believe. The same team behind the musical Dreamgirls, wrote this show just a few years ago. I love the music in the show - but I've never seen it staged. It was a hit was critics when it opened on Broadway but it still didn't run for long.
Elizabeth and I found out about the audition just a couple of days ago…so there wasn’t a lot of time to prep. I was thrilled about the audition because it was on a weekend and I knew I could go. Last night…at 10:00 she and I were in a rehearsal studio in Chelsea working out the music we would use to audition. The notice said that you could sing full selections. With the rehearsal space closing and the audition today, I decided to go with a song I knew that I knew.
The song was Elaborate Lives. I’ve written about the song before. It’s one of the songs that followed me around Atlanta and a song that people expected me to sing anywhere that I would be singing. So…I decided to stay true to a song that has treated me so well.
We were both up early and on the train heading to Brooklyn and the audition. The audition was an Open Call, so there was no telling how many people would show up. The audition was open to people who weren’t Equity (members of the Actor’s Union), so that alone insured that the turn out would be big.
Elizabeth and I were there almost 2 hours before they would open the doors. There was only one person in line ahead of us. We made an Unofficial sign-in list and began the process of waiting.
Once we got inside…and had our names on the Official List – we started the next round of waiting. Every Equity actor who showed up was seen straight-away and the rest of the Non-Equity actors we moved down the list.
The wait wasn’t too bad. A group in the corner discovered a set of Uno cards and began a game, others listed to their iPods to relax or rehearse, Elizabeth pulled out sewing, and I went outside. I was uncontrollably nervous…it felt like I had never sung in front of people before. I walked the block and sang out Elaborate Lives to parked cars and the sidewalk.
It felt like a short trip to crazy and I was half way there.
I went back inside and just before my name was called they went from accepting full songs to hearing only 16 bars.
That was just the shot of panic I needed. Elizabeth was in auditioning when the decision was made. She came out and an Equity actor went in. She and I sat down and tried to find 16 measures that would work. If we counted 16 measures back from the end of the song, there wasn’t much to show. No money note. No range.
There was no choice but to lift 16 measures out of the middle, cold – and just hope for the best. So that’s what we did.
I walked in and everyone greeted me warmly. I was still marking my sheet music as I walked to the piano. I handed it to the pianist (also the show’s musical director), set a tempo with her, then turned to the six faces looking at me, waiting to see what I could do.
It was an odd place to start but I jumped in...and the piano caught up with me. I sang through my 16 measures and though I didn’t get to the end of the song, I found a nice place to bow out.
I left the audition glad that it was over, glad that I had gone and feeling good about how I sounded. Who knows what will actually come of it…but it feels good to get my feet wet.
Elizabeth headed to a babysitting job and I went to Target and met up with an old co-worker from Peachtree, Ivory. It was SO good to see her and catch up. We took a picture together at the entrance of the store, so I’ll have to post that later.
We had lunch and caught up. She’s living in Brooklyn and though we’ve talked a couple of times since I moved here – I hadn’t actually SEEN her.
Good times!
