West Side Story International Tour

The past month I was busy working on a project that left very little time for auditioning.  I've only gone to three auditions recently, so there hasn't been much to update on.  Apologies for that.  Now, I did recently go in for my first invited call for a principal role.  It was for the role of Anita in the international tour of West Side Story.  What a fun role!  I was given a song and sides to learn and practice, which was nice because it helped me feel a bit more prepared going into the audition and I had about a week to get everything together.

The day of the audition, I was in the middle of doing a full run through for the show that I was rehearsing and had to run out during lunch just to be able to get to the audition.  I arrived there about fifteen minutes late, which my agent had already cleared with the casting folks beforehand and unfortunately, during my hasty exit from rehearsal I left my shoes behind!  I had to do the entire audition barefoot!  When I finally entered the audition room, ridiculously flustered, there were six other girls already in the middle of learning a combination from "America".  I had to jump in and learn the combo the best I could; however, the director, Joey McKneely, was gracious enough to go back and quickly reteach the beginning of the combination for me.  After reviewing it a few times and giving us corrections we then did the combination two at a time.  After that he had us do grande jetes (leaps) on each side and then everyone went outside to wait to sing.

I asked to sing as soon as possible so that I could get back to rehearsal, but still had to wait for  two girls to go in front of me.  Once it was my turn in the room I sang the excerpt they gave me from "A Boy Like That".  The song happens when Anita discovers that Maria is still seeing Tony, a Jet, who has just killed Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks and the boyfriend of Anita.  I sang it once and then Joey came over to me and said that while he liked my voice he wanted my acting to have less outward anger and suggested I turn the emotion more inward.  So I sang it again, and then he wanted to hear the last note again!  So I sang the last half of the song again!  I think that some people might get discouraged by corrections in an audition, but I love it because to me it means that they are interested in you and they want to see how well you take direction.

After the singing, I read the sides I was given.  Again, there were a lot of corrections and suggestions from Joey.  He even cajoled me into doing an improv dialogue with him where he was a little kid who wanted a cookie and I had to tell him no over and over again!  Now in my head I don't yet consider myself an actor so this was all incredibly foreign to me, but I gave it my best and tried to apply what I do when singing a song to reading the lines.  I definitely see a straight acting class in my future though! In total, I probably read the sides about three times and then they sent me outside to have my measurements taken!  Of course, that didn't mean I got the job.  The Rockettes do the same thing to their final round girls so that if they are selected they can start costuming right away.  They didn't take everyone's measurements though so I at least made it past the next cut!

Overall, it was a very new audition experience for me.  I haven't heard back from them yet, and the tour leaves in less than a month so I assume they gave the role to someone else.  But I was very happy how the audition turned out, especially since it started out so crazy!  Here's to more principal auditions in the future!



*This is the one and only Debbie Allen playing Anita during America at the Tony Awards.  Her dancing is just ridiculous!

Nice Work If You Can Get It

About 2.5 weeks ago, I was called in to audition for Nice Work If You Can Get It.  It was a emergency replacement call and they were specifically looking for a sexy black dancer girl.  I was super excited to be going in and very hopeful about the opportunity.  The call was late in the afternoon on Friday and rehearsal for the show was expected to start a week later!  So I knew that this would be the only audition and they were going to cast someone today!  Pressure!

Anyways, I get to the audition, change, and check in.  Then its time to head into the room.   There are nineteen other girls there and I recognize most of them from other auditions.  We learn a short cutesy combination from Kathleen Marshall herself and then its time to go three at a time.  I was front and center in my group and danced the combination well.  After everyone went, they asked us to all go outside and prepare to sing.  I went in and sang my first song, "Always True to You in My Fashion" from Kiss Me Kate and it was pretty good.  They then asked me to sing a second song!  Hooray for an in the room callback!  They wanted a ballad and I decided to sing "Simple Little Things" from 110 In the Shade.  The second song also went well.  Kathleen told me I did a very good job, made sure she had my name right, and that was it!

I was hopeful to get a call that evening saying I booked it, but as you can guess I did not.  I later found out from my agent that I at least did get put on hold for it, so they definitely liked me!  I'm definitely wondering if my second song choice could have been better, but its too easy to monday morning quarterback yourself.   Anyways, the girl who got the job had a couple of Broadway credits under her belt already and was a great dancer too, so Yay for her! 

I'm getting closer, I'm claiming it.

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