Ogunquit Playhouse auditions

I suppose today would count as my first audition for professional musical theatre. So regardless of the outcome and how I did, I am thrilled. I got my first one under my belt. I'm getting out there and actually giving it a try. My plan is to start auditioning and build to a point where I'm auditioning more and more frequently (and thus justifying a possible move).

They requested 32 bars of an uptempo song. The season is Fiddler on the Roof, High School Musical, My Fair Lady, The Producers and Les Miserables, so the request seemed a little odd. But I picked out 32 bars in consultation with my voice teacher. We settled on the last 32 bars of "Here I Am" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

I typically get nervous in a vocal audition. More specifically, my nerves are unpredictable. I can feel nervous before and fine while auditioning or fine before and nervous once I start singing. The audition went something like this:

Ah, the way to be to me is French (Okay.)
The way they c'est la vie is French (Hey, I'm feeling pretty good!)
So here I am... (What the hell is the piano player doing?!?!?!) Beaumont sur Mer
A big two weeks on the Riviera (Where am I? I have no idea what's going on with this song.)
If I'm only dreaming please don't wake me. (Tempo is back. Now what are those notes he's playing?!)
Let the summer sun and breezes take me (Oh, god, this is bad. Please get me through this.)
Excuse me if I seem jejeune. (I feel totally thrown off and nervous. I started out so confident.)
I promise I'll find my marbles soon. (They can see how totally uncomfortable I am.)
But everywhere I look (Accompanist, what are you doing?!)
It's like a scene from a book. (I don't think that's right...)
Open the book and here I am. (Was I off tempo there or was he?)

And that was less than 16 bars! They asked me to start again. The second time wasn't really any better. But it was a valiant and desperate attempt on my part to plow through the song and ignore the piano. Rather than the accompaniment, the guy was playing bass chords. "Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong." (The piano player was causing problems for everyone, and the audition team knew it.)

They did not ask me to sing another song. (Too bad. I would have loved to have done a legit piece.) They did, however, ask me to read. So, I take that as a sign that my audition was fairly successful all things considered.

So, in my quest to pursue an acting career and to learn from my experiences, here's what I got from today:

• I went to my first audition for professional musical theatre. Yay!
• I have more control over my (often uncontrollable) nerves than I do over things like the competency of the piano player.
• Just go with the flow.
• Simple is probably best when it comes to audition songs. And sticking with my gut instinct on what type of song to sing (legit) is also probably a good idea.
• You can't prepare for everything. Some things (like the accompaniment issue today) are just going to blind-side me. I'll have to figure out a way to adapt more quickly. Until then, my best bet is just to not freak out and beat myself up over it.
• I just need to audition more, so I can get better at it.

The end. :)

A Learning Experience

Yesterday I auditioned at the NETC auditions.

What is the value of an experience? Is its value measured only by its outcome? I think not. I learned a lot, and that alone was valuable. Notes from the weekend:

• I was under-prepared. My monologues were memorized, and I think I performed them well. But it would have gone better if my memorization were more solid and if I'd delved deeper into the monologues.
  
• I had time called on me. I was just a short sentence away from finishing, but I had to stop. That was embarrassing, but I was confident in the knowledge that I couldn't have been the first (or last) person who had that happen. I should have done a better job of timing out the monologues.
  
• I got pretty nervous, and my mouth was dry. I think the reason for my nervousness had nothing to do with desire for a certain outcome and everything to do with the newness and bigness of the situation. I still need to learn how to handle my nerves and be more confident.
  
• Everyone seemed the same in a way. The average age was young. There were a lot of college students there. But I would include myself in that sameness. There were a ton of thin, pretty, brunette white girls who could play 20s. There were some minorities and different ages or body types, but not a lot.
  
• There were a lot of serious performers there who had auditioned to get into their serious prestigious acting programs and some of whom had professional gigs under their belts. I tried my best to not feel insignificant or intimidated. (And I think I did that pretty well.)
  
• There were some good regional theatres there auditioning for their seasons — but they were, for the most part, in the musical theatre audition room.
  
• Some of the ones in the acting-only room were auditioning for people to join their $100/week elementary-school tour of Jack and the Beanstalk. (That's not a specific example and is a bit of hyperbole.) It's not really that I'd look down on a gig like that. I wouldn't. (Hey, I'm coming from community theatre.) But I couldn't afford to take a gig like that, even if it were offered. College students have a definite advantage here because they're more likely to be able to actually take some of these offers.
  
• I got called back by two theatres. Both were educational-type tours. And they both seemed interesting. I don't know whether I could afford to take them. But I don't need to worry about that until and unless I am actually offered a job.
  

Making Sure to Take the Next Step

It's been a while since I've updated this blog — and to a certain extent, I've been slacking in terms of my real world acting-career progress as well. I was very sick for a week ... blah, blah, blah. It gets so easy to make excuses.

So I find myself in March. It's been six months since I lost my job. It's been two and a half months since the new year began. What do I have to show for it? Some auditions that resulted in rejections. An audition (for Annie) that resulted in my getting the part (Grace) I wanted. Continuing with my voice lessons and dance class. I'm making progress in those areas. But am I making enough progress? It's hard to judge. I don't want to beat myself up over a pursuit that can be abusive enough as it is. I don't want to get complacent, either, and think that a moderate effort is enough.

VATTA auditions (Vermont combined auditions for maybe 20 theatre, film and commercial producers) were March 1. I was registered. And then I ended up getting sick. I couldn't prepare for the auditions, and on the day of, I was still too sick to perform.

This weekend is the NETC auditions. I applied (with the required fee) and waited to see if I would receive an audition slot. I didn't get one for musical theatre (what I really wanted), but I did get one for acting-only. Maybe this was meant to be. I'll audition ... and who knows?

I want a professional acting career — and one of the biggest steps toward that goal is to actually audition for professional theatre (instead of just community theatre). I'm taking my first major step (other than a Vermont Stage audition) into this world!