The New York Musical Theater Festival

A couple of weeks ago I was in rehearsal for a small gig I was doing.  Rehearsal was supposed to run from 10-6, but we got out early around 4pm.  So I hustled my butt down to Pearl Studios to audition for the New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF).  NYMF is a fairly new event in New York City that gives a lot of budding writers/composers/directors/etc. a chance to put up their new musicals in the city.  Now this year was the very first year that they held an ECC (equity chorus call) for dancers, and after going to the audition I can see why.


I arrived just barely on time; given that I had to rush from rehearsal to the audition.  I checked in with the monitor, changed my clothes, and was attempting to make myself look decent, when someone from the casting office walks into the room and tells us that they will be seeing us all at the same time.  Whaaaaaaat???!?  Yes, they were going to shove all the equity AND non-equity girls into the audition room at once.  Great, its always fun to learn a combination when you are standing in a room so full you feel like cattle in the pen before slaughter.  Oh well.  We headed into the room and it was PACKED and not only was it packed but the sweet woman teaching the combination must have been about 4'11" so no one can see!


She introduced herself and explained to us that the combination she was about to teach is a mishmash of a lot of different styles of dance.  You see, the room was filled with people from ALL the different NYMF shows in need of dancers.  Each show of course had different needs and rather than teach several different combinations, they saved time by making one crazy schizophrenic combo that had in it: sexy jazz, tap, hip-hop, and a little acting.  It was nuts.  After all of us sardines learned the combination we did it in groups and they made a cut.  I was asked to stay and sing, but was super confused because they didn't tell you what musical called you back.  Which meant I had no clue what type of song to sing!  I went with my standard "Waiting for Life" and that was it.

Then two weeks later I got a callback for the NYMF show Central Avenue Breakdown!  They were looking for a "a whisky-voiced jazz alto" for a featured ensemble roll.  If that doesn't sound like me then what does?  I was told to bring a jazz/R&B song and to prepare an excerpt of music from the show.  When I arrived at the call today, there was a mixture of both dancers and singers their, which was only setting us up for a long audition especially when we started late.  The dancers had to wait while the singers did their movement combination and then approx. 15 of us went in to learn the combination.  The combo was a super fun, low to the ground number.  Borrowing a lot from the 40s, with basic Lindy steps and the sugarfoot, it also had a high kick and tons of opportunities to show your personality.  We all learned the combination, did it four at a time, then were told to go back to the holding room and wait for our turn to sing.

After waiting for a while, I finally requested to be put at the head of the line because I had to go see a show later on that evening.  I walked into the room and sang A Sunday Kind of Love.  It went very well, but they didn't ask me to sing the music from the show.  However, the director/choreographer told me that I had a great audition today and thats all I can really ask for.

Where is Everyone???

I think once about two years ago I talked about going against the grain and heading to a smaller audition on a day when there is a bigger call going on at the same time.  Well yesterday that is exactly what I did.  Northern Stage Theatre is a smaller equity house in Vermont that was holding a call for the musical Annie.  As a child I always dreamed of being Annie but given that I probably couldn't pull off the red hair, it was a dream never to come true.  (My mom and dad weren't Will and Jada..shout out to Willow!)  But I headed over to audition for it as an adult on the same day that auditions for a new upcoming musical called Becoming Chaplin was coming out.


Now, I expected fewer dancers to be there, but I walked in and there were only six equity girls there! Six!  And when all was said and done only twelve non-equity girls showed up!  So we all got to go in as one rather small group and learned a combination to the number "I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here".  The combination was very ballet influenced and right up my alley!  Nothing makes you feel more joyous in an audition than being in your comfort zone, let me tell you.  So I got to have a lot of fun, which is not always the case. 

We get to go three at a time for the casting folk and I am in the 2nd group of three since there were only six equity girls total.  I had a lot of fun and felt good about my performance and I could tell that a cut was being made, but they never announced it to us.   Instead they had all eighteen of us come back and sing.  I sang a fairly traditional song entitled A Little Bit in Love from the musical Wonderful Town, which went OK, but I pretty much decided at that moment that I cannot wait another week without taking my tush to voice lessons.  After singing that was it! We were all free to go and I headed down to that other audition for Becoming Chaplin.  Two auditions in one day? You bet, but more on that later!

Something Wicked this way comes!

It is unfortunately time to jump head first back into the audition circuit here in the city!  So Thursday, after returning from my dear friend's wedding (a seriously awesome, beautiful, never been so happy for someone ever wedding)...what?  Oh right this is an audition blog.  Anyways, Thursday I went over to the Wicked dancer chorus call.  I really love the musical, but its been on Broadway forever and they are rarely ever looking for people.  But I went anyways, because I had never been and wanted to see what the combination was like.


I was the 26th equity lady to get an audition card and they decided to take us in, in groups of 30, so I was in the first group to go.  Hooray for no waiting!  Well, can I just say that this may have been one of the worst auditions I have ever had!  Simply put, the combination was very contemporary ballet and well after about a year of straight jazz and tap, you could say I was woefully unprepared.

Here's a video that gives an example of choreo, but its not the combo they used.  Starts at 1:25 or so.

The combination instead of being taught in eights, was counted in fours, fives, and a seven.  Add to that movement that just refused to feel comfortable in my body and you have a recipe for disaster.  After just struggling to pick up the material, I finally got it at least well enough to not completely embarrass myself, but it was still terrible.  I can't sit here and pretend it was anything else.  However of our group of 30 they only kept 2 and I'm not even sure if they were asked to sing.  So I'm no too upset.  At least now I know what to expect and also if I'm serious about Wicked I should take my butt to some contemporary classes!  So it wasn't a totally useless or demoralizing experience.

On to the next one!

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!

Walking in Memphis!

So the other day I mentioned attending an EPA and leaving to go to another audition in between.  Well, that in between audition just happened to be the equity chorus call for Memphis the musical!  The 1st national tour will be going out in the fall and while I'm not sure if I'll be ready to go back on tour just yet, I figured there would be no harm in going in and getting seen.


After leaving the Ogunquit audition, I arrived at Memphis around 10:45.  The awesome thing with having my equity card is that I was able to walk right in to the monitor and grab a number!  I was only #49 at that and they were doing groups of twenty-five, so I knew I would be in the second group.  I took some time to change and warm up and before I knew it, I was going in to the audition.


The combination was taught to us by someone who is still currently in the show running on Broadway.  It was a fun little combination called radio, where we were supposed to pretend we were bad, misbehaving teenagers.  It had an odd little penche step in it repeatedly, along with a short stomp combination!  This being my first audition in over six months words can't express how nervous I was to 1. now be in a room with all equity dancers and 2. to have to pick up, remember, and perform a combination so quickly!  After learning the combination, they told our group to leave and go practice it outside, while the first group went back in to do it three at a time.


We all filed back out into the holding room and began to practice.  Its always amusing and good to have time to practice a combination before having to do it for the casting crew, but at the same time you don't want to tire yourself out or get messed up watching everyone else do it.  So I practiced it a few times, and then focused on stretching, considering they had stated that when we kick our knee should be by our ear and they didn't care how it got there! LOL


After a very short time, we went in to perform the combo.  It was fun and went fairly well, I just had one minor mistake at the very end of the combo.  But I don't really think it mattered.  Unfortunately I will never know because they didn't make a cut!  Well they did, but they didn't announce it.  Instead the casting director told us that they were going to be seriously casting for the tour in April and there was only one Broadway spot opening up in May.  So we wouldn't be hearing from them for a while even if we did make the grade.  Booo!  Another anticlimactic audition, but it was good to dip my foot back in the audition pool.  Only two more months before I'm unemployed again!

Young Frankenstein cont.

Tuesday morning, was the morning of the callback for Young Frankenstein.  It was set to begin at 10am and me being my early-arriving self got there at 9:30.  There were several new faces that were not there yesterday and only a few people I recognized from the day before.  Apparently, getting called back from a chorus call gets you into the "Invited Dance Call" which is what other people are just invited to in the first place.

The audition starts out with tap again, only this time its the combination all the equity girls learned yesterday.  I practically run to the front of the room, because I know I'm going to need to be able to see if I want to get this right, but it really didn't matter because the assistant choreographer kept making everyone switch around so we all got a chance to see.  He started teaching the combination and it was fast and a little complicated.  One girl left the audition before he even finished teaching it!

Have you ever studied for an exam and then when you sat down to take it realized it was nothing like you had planned?  You studied straight facts, and suddenly its an essay test?  That's what this was like, but just like when sitting in a surprisingly difficult exam, you have a choice.  Either give up and sit there staring off into space until its over or try to get it together and make sense of what you're looking at.  I literally felt my brain turn on and forced myself to take it all in.  Luckily they let us go over it a couple of times before we had to do it three at a time and I made the cut!

Next we did the same ballet combination from the previous day, so my brain got a break.  They didn't make a cut at this point since there were 13 people left (yes I counted!) .  It was time to sing again,  after doing such an awful job the day before I wanted to practice a bit before I went in but there was no where to do it.  Every time I tried to practice a lovely employee from the studio would tell me not to. Ugh.  I had planned on singing A Little Bit in Love again, but when I got in the room.  I asked the casting director and choreographer what they wanted and they said whatever I was most comfortable with so I completely switched gears and sang Waiting for Life to Begin from Once on This Island.

Surprisingly, the casting director told me how much better this song was than yesterday's!  She also took the time to give me feedback on my performance.  It was the first time anyone had every taken the time to do this and I was extremely grateful.  Still upon leaving I let all hope go out the window.  Its better as a performer to just know you didn't get it when you leave an audition so that its a surprise when you do rather than a disappointment when you don't.

Yet somehow, the next day, I look at my phone and there's a missed call from Tara Rubin casting!  I've been called back again!  This time, the call back is for next week and Susan Stroman is going to be there!  The woman has one FIVE TONYS!! She directed and choreographed The Producers!   This is really quite the opportunity and I'm really excited.  I don't know how many spots there are on the tour..I've heard two females and I don't know how many girls will be there next week.  But this whole experience has been awesome! Wish me luck!

P.S. Please listen to LaChanze sing Waiting for Life to Begin and KNOW that I SOUND NOTHING LIKE THAT.  She sings it a whole step higher than me and she's an icon...that is all.

Catch Me if You Can

The new trend on Broadway is turning popular movies into musicals and today's audition was no different. The Leonardo Dicaprio movie Catch Me if You Can is coming to Broadway and has been previewed in Seattle's 5th avenue theater. The audition was held yesterday and it was crazy in there! The call was at 10 am, and the monitor basically shooed all the non-eq girls out into the hallway where we had to wait just to find out if we would even be seen for the day. At ten he announced that we were to all "go away" until 12:30pm. Now, I had gotten there at 9:30 so waiting for three hours was highly unappetizing and I didn't have anywhere to go in midtown anyways. So a friend and I went upstairs to the 2nd floor of the audition studio and just hung out for 2.5 hours. If I'd have been by myself I know I would have taken my little tushie right on back home.

Now I have learned that hanging around no matter what the monitor (guy/girl who is running the waiting room) says is key when you are a non-eq. When he first made his announcement he said that they would probably only see the first twenty non-eqs at 12:30 and I was number 78, but I stuck it out until 12:30 and guess what? They saw all of us! This was so nice of them because they really didn't have to do that and I am grateful that they were willing to go that extra mile. Especially when 136 equity girls alone had shown up for the call! Just proof that if you really want to get seen, you hang in there until they close the door in your face.

Since, we were non-equity there really are no rules for how they hold our auditions. So they bring all 75+ of us into the room at the same time!!!!! And guess who is there?? The one and only Jerry Mitchell (pic)! Mr. Mitchell is an award winning choreographer who worked on Legally Blonde , La Cage Aux Follies, Hairspray, and a multitude of other shows many of which are on Broadway. Anyways, here he is in person teaching us the choreography for his show! The material was really simple, he and his assistants taught us 4:8counts which included the Charleston (Thank you Miss Tauna!) and dancing pretending we had a hat on our head. All 75 girls went through the combination twice, then Mr. Mitchell broke us up into five groups of fifteen and each group got to run the combo once. Then as each group went through it for the second time he hand picked girls to go stand to the side. Surprise!!! This was the audition. I think a lot of people were shocked! Personally, I think that I gave it my all, but I was not hand picked....(frown face). Anyways, the girls the girls that were kept, stayed behind and learned some more of the combination and then a few of them were told about callbacks.

I think there is a twofold lesson to be had in all this. One, stick around no matter what the monitor says if you REALLY want to be seen and Two, when you are learning/practicing a combo in the audition room always remember that its part of the audition too! Not just when its three at a time and they have your headshot in front of them!

Overall, it was a long day (3.5 hours waiting) for 15 mins of time in front of Jerry Mitchell, but no complaints. Hopefully I can impress him on Monday at the Legally Blonde auditions!!!!!!

Sometimes it doesn't work out.

Tuesday, was the day of auditions for Elf the musical. Never heard of it before??? Well thats because somewhere, someone decided that this movie, yes the one starring Will Ferrell would be great to bring to Broadway. Now, don't shoot me, but I don't like Will Ferrell movies and I didn't really care for the movie, but I was interested to see what kind of dancing they would actually need for this show since the chorus call was for "comedic" dancers.

The call was at 10am, words can't express how much I hate 10am calls since I have to get there hideously early as a non-eq. But Tuesday of course I get out of the apartment late and don't get down to the audition until about 9:45. The place is packed! Whoever was running the audition had reserved the smallest holding room ever and dancers were spilled out of the room, lining both sides of the hallways all the way down the corridor. Utter ridiculousness. Expecting to be #100+ on the non-equity list I fight my way through the hoards and get to the list to find multiple blanks spots at the top of the list even though the rest of the list was filled in past 100. Apparently when the official list was created from the unofficial list (hard to explain) some people weren't there to transpose their own name so the spots were left open...and since they never returned the monitor (who runs the audition) said anyone could put their name down so I was #21!!! Awesome.

I head down the hallway to find somewhere to sit and put on my makeup (I hate makeup...) and about 20 min later the monitor comes out and announces....??? They're not going to see any non-equity girls!!!!!!!!!!! Sigh....I had been having so much luck getting seen at auditions that this was a possibility, but alas I wouldn't even get a chance.

At first, I wasn't even going to write about this because I felt people wanted to hear about my experiences at auditions dancewise. But then I decided that getting turned away is part of it too sometimes and I have just been lucky so far that this hasn't really happened to me yet, but I'm sure this will be the first of many to come until I get that equity card.

Just a Spoonfull of Sugar

So I figure this week has been dead audition wise, so I'm speaking about past auditions before I forget.

In June, I went to the equity Mary Poppins audition. Now, I don't know if you know how equity works, but basically equity cards are giving to dancers in the union and they get preference in auditions. Since I am a non-equity dancer when I go to equity chorus calls, I am always seen last and may not even get seen depending on time constraints. Anyways, I get to the Mary Poppins audition and there are of course massive amounts of girls there. They had seen the boys earlier in the day and some of them stuck around to teach us the combination they had learned! So kind of them! It was just a quick time step break. Great I can do this!

When the non-equity girls are let into audition room we learn the break and then we are lined up to go one at a time! We do the break and a pirouette, it literally takes 30 seconds a person, and a cut is made! I'm in!

In the next round we learn the first half of a tap combination which is seen in the number Step in Time. It was a super fun combination where we pretend to be chimney sweeps dancing on the roof tops and scared to fall off! We perform for the important peeps four or five at a time and the make another cut. I made it in again, yes!

They ask us to change our shoes into heels and explain that we are going to be doing a portion of the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious dance in the show. Not only that but SURPRISE! we have to sing and dance at the same time, oh and not just sing, but sing in an English accent. I'm standing there thinking how crazy this is going to be but start focusing on learning the combination which directly corresponds to the words in the song and its fast! Lots of arm motions. At the end of learning it they pair us with a partner tell us that we have to perform the dance facing each other, circling each other on certain parts, and at the end of the whole thing we have to make up a pretend pantomime conversation to have with our partner. Seriously?? I'd never been to such a crazy audition before. Anyways, me and my partner perform and I mess up. Poo, sure its over I wait to be cut, but surprisingly they keep me again!

To make this short....after that we learned the rest of Step in Time. It was so much fun, super fast, but getting all caught up in being a death defying chimney sweep role was easy and awesome. They cut again, then we redid the singing dancing Supercal number, another cut and finally it was time to sing! Dun dun dun.... I sing my song, and the director?? asks if I have another song to sing and I don't, crap. He thanks me and I'm out. I was mildly consoled by the fact that they only kept two girls after the singing round, which included my Supercal partner, and they did ballet after that.

Overall this was another very encouraging audition; however, it lasted FOREVER! I must have been there for 4-5 hours and they made SIX cuts! Talk about brutal. But I loved the material and had a lot of fun and I will be back to Mary Poppins again!