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. :)