Elbow, Wrist, Hand...Eye High...and all that!

Its May, and of course that means its time for Rockette auditions again!  I think I've done more than enough blogging about the experience.  So I'm just going to do a couple of quick bullet points for anyone who is curious about the specifics of this year.

• This year instead of having girls line the block and stand outside for hours, Radio City handed out slips with times to come back.  I got there around 8:15am and was given a slip for the 10:45 time slot.
• When I came back at 10:45, I still ended up waiting an hour before I could come inside, but spent a significantly less amount of time waiting once inside the building.
• They started out with a jazz combination, then made a cut.  Once they had seen all the girls, the ones who made it past the first cut came back in and learned the rest of the jazz combination. Then a second cut was made.
• To finish out the first day we learned a quick tap combination; which is always a relief to me because thankfully its something I'm very comfortable doing.  A third cut was made and then those of us who where left were invited back to callbacks the next day.
• 32 girls left

How did I feel about the first day, ok.  My double turn was off all day which was really annoying because I can turn just fine on the daily.  I also did one wrong head turn, but overall a solid day.

Day Two

• I arrived around 9:15am and the audition began at 10am. 
• We learned a "new" jazz routine, which is called Shine. This combo has actually been used in callbacks the past three years.   After all the girls went, Linda Haberman told us that she thought a lot of us, let nerves get the best of us.  So she made us do it again as a big group, and kind of walked around the room looking at us.  Fun.
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• Then we learned the rest of the tap routine and did the jazz combination from yesterday over again.
• Then a surprise! They made a cut.  I have only seen a cut made one other time on the second day and that was early in the day, not all the way at the end.  
• After the cut, we did a pretty long kick combination.  Then they had all the girls line up, link up, and kick together.  I have not seen that done at all in the past three years.
• At the end of it all there were 26 girls left

 Nothing more to add.  My pirouettes were acting up, and man I was tired by the time it was time to kick, but here's to hoping that I can get that call again!

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!!!!!!