Anything Goes National Tour pt. 2

In January I went to the open call for the national tour of Anything Goes.  If you'd like to read about it please go here.   Four months later, I had the opportunity to go back in for another round of auditions for the tour.  Which is just an example of how unpredictable the casting of shows can be.  You never know if you've been cut or they are just waiting until later to call you in.

The audition started out with the jazz combination we learned in January from the song "Blow Gabriel Blow" and then a cut was made.  I was kept and then we put our tap shoes on to learn a tap combination!  Yay!  Of course the combination was from the shows title number "Anything Goes".  It was a classic style tap number, only 64 counts long and the difficulty was not too bad.  The combination consisted primarily of back essences, grab offs, buck triple time steps and cramp rolls. I'm apologize if you don't know the tap vocabulary.  After learning it as a large group we began to do it three at a time.  I nailed the combination and the grab offs they made each person do alone.  After everyone danced they made another cut and those of us that were left now had to sing.

I actually debuted a new song at this audition called "Oh Diogenes".  It is a classic Rodgers and Hart song and perfectly suited to audition for this type of show.  It is a little longer of a song, at 32 bars, than the usual 16-bar cut I sing most of the time.  The song went pretty well and I was asked to sing a second contrasting song.  I chose to sing "Simple Little Things" which is starting to become my go to second/soprano song.  After I got done singing everyone behind the table looked happy and generally entertained which was nice.  A few days later I received an appointment for final callbacks the following week!

*Unrelated Thought*

Thus far in my auditioning I've noticed three different faces people generally have behind the table.

1. The person who smiles no matter what.  They will keep smiling even if you sing off key, crash and burn with the accompanist, etc.  Of course that can lead them to look a little like a crazy person sometimes. LOL

2.  The person who gives you the dead stare no matter what.  You could be Idina Menzel in the audition room and they will just stare at you like they have heard it all before.  No smiling ever.

3.  The person who actually seems to be reacting to what you are singing.  They are along for the ride with you.  They might not actually be smiling but they are into it.

Obviously, my personal preference is to sing for person #3, followed by #1, and lastly #2.  Person #2 has a tendency to unsettle me when I'm singing, which can make me nervous and thus mess up my audition.

*Unrelated Thought End*

One last time for Stro...again

I had my callback for the Big Fish workshop this past Tuesday.  I had been given the music I learned on Friday to practice, so I knew I had to sing that again and I was also told to bring my book.  When I arrived, it had the feel of final callbacks and there were 15 girls there in total.  All of the girls had been in before, except for one and she was a notable Broadway veteran who had me very nervous.  The girls who were in for the same part as me, there were four of us, had to get to the audition early to go over the music.  So just the four of us went into a room with the accompanist to sing through the music.  Just a bit intimidating.  After the singing finished I had to go sit by myself to get my mind together, because I was letting myself get a little intimidated and freaking out.  YES I can be freaked out at auditions.  I'm still waiting to get my Broadway credit and when you are competing with girls who are constantly working on Bway it can get the best of you.

So after a quick pep talk from a friend and taking some time to get it together, it was time to go audition.  We first reviewed the tap combination very quickly and then we performed it three at a time.  Then five girls, including myself, were taken in to do the ballet combo for the featured part.  We reviewed it and then we each got to go one at a time for Stro!  After that it was time to sing.  Apparently I missed the memo about bringing an audition dress to sing in!  Now, yes it is standard to sing in a dress, but a lot of times dancers won't change to sing after dancing because:

1. You want casting to remember who you are.  i.e. the girl in the pink leotard etc. and if you change into something different they might get confused if the girl dancing in pink and the girl singing in green are the same person.

2.  A lot of times you go right from dancing to singing and there is not enough time to change.

So I didn't bring a dress to sing in, because it honestly just didn't cross my mind.  Oh well.  When it was finally my time to sing, and I was the LAST girl to sing.  I went into the room and sang the given music first with Andrew Lippa.  After the first time through, I received a correction on the acting/music and then was told to sing it again.  I implemented the change he asked for and he told me I did a good job on the correction!  Then I sang my own song Don Juan.  Stro told me "well done" and that was it!  The whole audition went really well, and I don't think I could have done any better.  Which, is really the best way to end the day, that way even if you don't get it you know that you couldn't have done anything else.  No Regrets!

I think the lessons that can be learned in all this is that:

1.  Sometimes getting cut at an audition has NOTHING to do with your dancing.  You go in a bad group, you are standing too far to the left to be seen, casting had to sneeze while you were dancing and thats all they could thing about..etc.

2.  There is nothing wrong with going in for the same thing over and over.

3.  If you feel something is awry, ask to be seen again.  The worst they can do is say "No".

Be Aggressive Be Be Aggressive.....Big Fish pt. deux

We last saw our heroine...


No really, after the Big Fish audition fiasco, I got angry...and then I got a bit aggressive.  Hence the title.  I emailed my agent, yes I have an agent now, and asked him if he could get me into the invited call for Big Fish.  He told me that he had submitted me but that they were not giving out that many appointments and that I hadn't received one, but he told me he would push for me.  However, about a week later I got a call from the agency saying that I had an appointment to be seen!  Hooray!


So on Friday of last week, I went to Pearl studios to audition for Big Fish again.  Given that this was one of many callbacks they were having I didn't know what to expect.  What I found was that they were doing a callback for some character actors/singers as well as looking at...um...some ethnic female dancers for the chorus.  Oh and Stro was in the room!  We learned a short character combo first, which was primarily a chance to see if the actor/singers could move.  They then excused everyone but four dancer girls and we had to learn a tap combination.  Luckily it was a shorter version of the combo I had already learned the day I got cut!  I performed the combination really well and they asked me and one other girl to stay and sing.  Now I was told that I should be prepared to do acrobatics at the audition, so when casting came out to tell us to get ready to sing I asked them if Stro wanted to see me tumble.  be aggressive be be aggressive The casting director went in and asked her and she said sure, so I went in and tumbled for her.  A few aerial cartwheels and a round off back handspring.  Then went out to get ready to sing.


I sang first out of the two of us, and sang "Don Juan" from Smokey Joe's Cafe.  It went really well. After I finished the song I stood there while the people at the table kind of looked at each other and then Stro told me that they had kind of changed there mind about what track they were considering me for!  That's when Andrew Lippa himself, stood up walked over to the piano and had me learn a song with him!  Whaaaaaaaaaaaat??  I learned a cut of a song, for the role of the mermaid.  It was all sung on La La's so at least there were no words to remember.  After I learned it sufficiently, I then had a solo/duet with Andrew Lippa in front of the entire creative team.  Insane, especially after only learning the music three minutes beforehand.  I thought it went alright, I had a little trouble finding the tricky last note in the duet, but overall not bad.  Casting then asked me to go wait outside.

The other girl went in to sing and they told her she was done for the day.  At this point I am now the last girl standing!  They asked me to come back into the room to learn a ballet combination. BY MYSELF.  So its just me learning a combination with the entire creative team watching me.  Its a fairly short combo, but there are a few turns and a final developpe turn sequence to work around.  After I learned it, I performed the combination alone in the room with Stro and the creative team watching.  A la Cassie in A Chorus Line "Music and the Mirror" style and that was it.  Stro told me I did a great job as did everyone else and I went home for the day.  A few hours later I got a call saying I was coming in for a callback!  Hooray!

Callback pt. 3 coming soon...


THE Donna McKechnie performing Music and the Mirror.  1. listen to the opening lines of her monologue..fantastic! 2. The legendary dance starts at 2:00

 

Becoming Chaplin Audition

After finishing with the Northern Stage audition I hopped on the train to head to another audition for a workshop for the new musical Becoming Chaplin.  The Northern Stage audition had started at 9:30 and Becoming Chaplin was scheduled to start at 10.  So heading downtown at 10:30 I was in a bit of a hurry to make sure I got there in time to be seen.  Lucky for me when I arrived the first group of equity girls was still in the room and I was only #65!  Again, where is everyone!?


Now, originally the monitor, the person who runs the audition room, told me I would have to go with the non-equity girls because I had arrived so late.  But I quickly filled out my card and changed, just in case he tried to switch things up on me and surprise! that's exactly what he did.  As the second group was heading in he told me that I could go in with them.  So I rushed to put my shoes on and was the last person to get into the room.

Now, if you've ever seen a Charlie Chaplin film you know it has a lot of physical comedy in it.  So at the audition choreographer, Warren Carlyle tried to recreate this.  The first third of the combination was counted in sevens and sixes and was filled with acting, we were basically trying to portray someone waking up and stretching.  Then the combination broke into a little soft shoe number! Fun.  However, at the end it got very difficult.  The combination finished with a million chaine turns into a triple pirouette, into twelve fouettes, finished with a double pirouette and drop to a split! Seriously.....is this real life?

Now the combination was super long, but I managed to keep my brain on long enough to pick it up. Plus, I was in the very last group to audition so I had plenty of time to run through it in my head.  Watching 30 plus girls go before you is always helpful, but it also made me realize just how impossible that turn combination was.  You simply can't turn that much on a wood floor, with rubber soles, IN HEELS!!!  Luckily for me I have been too lazy to get my shoes rubbered so I had suede on my LaDucas.  Anyways, when it was finally my turn, I had a lot of fun with the acting and then when we got to the turn combination, I managed to get through the entire thing without stopping.  By the end I wasn't spotting and the entire room was just spinning by in a blur.  I'm also sure that they were the ugliest, most turned in, hiked up shoulder fouettes ever seen in an audition room.  But I dropped to my split and was finished!  Hooray!

Then choreographer told us that we could all be excused, but once in the hallway my name and one other girls name were called back into the room to dance some more!  But when we got in there he explained to us that we didn't need to dance again, that he simply wanted to let us know they would be calling us at some point to come in and sing again!  Awesome.

Callbacks for Memphis

In March I wrote about attending the equity chorus call for the national tour of Memphis.  Well, in the middle of April I received an email from Telsey casting to come in for a call back! Hooray!  After a long harrowing ordeal to get to NYC, I arrived an hour late for my appointment and had to go in the next group.


Unlike some other equity callbacks, this call still had a ton of people, and the first group took a very long time in the audition room.  However, once they were done the later group of girls, and there must have still been 50 of us, went into the room to learn the combination.  The combo turned out to be the same combination learned at the chorus call, with a few differences.  Mainly that there were two different variations that you had to learn and then based on how you were lined up you did one or the other.  A bit much to have to remember in an audition situation.  But we learned them and then went five at a time.  They then made a cut, and I was kept.


For the second combination all the girls were brought back into the room and told to put our heels on.  The asst. choreographer, Edgar Godineaux, then taught us a second combination which was very fun!  It was a cute combo, which I can only describe as being in the style of a Motown doo-wop singer.  It was a little longer, but despite being exhausted I managed to pick it up.  When it came time for my audition, I gave it all I had at the time, didn't mess up, and thought I did pretty good.


Unfortunately when it came time to move on to the next thing, about nine of us girls, were called over by the casting director and told that "It wasn't a bad thing, they were just considering us for another track, and that they didn't need to hear us sing today"  Booooo, there were still about 50 girls left so I was a little disappointed not to sing.  At the time, I wasn't sure if I had just been cut or if they really were considering me for another track in the show.  But as of last week, offers went out for the tour, so I guess it was a cut.  Its all for the best though, but I sure do love that musical!  Maybe next time!