Superfly the Musical

A few weeks ago, I had a particularly rough week of auditions.  Following the Fame and Chaplin auditions, I auditioned for the workshop of Superfly the Musical.  The new musical is set to show life in 1970's Harlem using music from the era and is directed and choreographed by the legendary Bill T. Jones, choreographer for Fela! The audition was held at the Alvin Ailey studios (my old stomping grounds), which was an unusual setting for a musical audition in the first place and an indicator of things to come.

First they split the audition by having the "Harlem Beauties" come in the morning and the "Priest's Girlfriend/Caucasion Streetwalkers" come in the afternoon.  Yes, they really did split the audition along those lines.  I arrived in the morning, being the Harlem Beauty that I am (sorry couldn't help myself)  and got a chance to catch up with some of the kids from Ailey which was really nice.  The girls at the audition ran the entire spectrum.  There were girls from The Ailey School there, girls from the Alvin Ailey company (!) and then girls that I usually see at musical theatre auditions.  Given the population I was extremely curious what I was in for.

The equity girls were called into the room and greeted by the fabulous Bill T. Jones himself.  He was extremely kind and ridiculously fit!  He started the audition by having us learn two phrases, as we repeated the phrases again and again, he would lead in the front and then switch one of the phrases and we were to learn it and repeat.  It was actually really difficult because while you were dancing you were expected to be watching and learning at the same time, then to dance it right after.  We were all struggling!  I thought that that was probably the first cut, but it wasn't.  It was the warm up!  He then, had us all walk through the center of the room at the same time.  We were to just keep walking and going through the center of the room.  So that he could see how we moved.  Then finally we learned a combo.  It was very much modern dance, had no counts, and though the music was in eights we were not to dance with the music!


Sigh, I hate being out of place at auditions.  It rarely happens to me, but when it does the feeling is discouraging.  Now this was not like the wicked combo, where I was having a hard time getting the movement in my body.  I learned the combo fine, but the timing was just not something I could adjust to.  My body needs counts!  So we did the combination once and Bill T. Jones goes around making cuts by shaking hands and telling people thanks for coming one by one, and he doesn't eliminate me! Whew.  But the girls that he does cut, he asks if they would like to sing on the spot in front of everyone while doing some movement across the floor... um what?  I'm not even sure if that's OK with equity?  These poor girls after being cut then have to sing their songs in front of us all, while making up their own dance.  Yikes!  We then do the combination again in groups and this time I'm given the boot along with others, but he didn't ask us to sing and I probably would have declined anyways. What an experience!

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!

Minor Redemption @ Rocky Horror

After my championship performance at Wicked the week before, I decided to sign up to audition for the Rocky Horror Picture show this past Thursday Jun, 2.  A brief aside, you have the opportunity as an equity member to sign up for chorus calls a week in advance.  That way if you do it early enough you can guarantee you'll be seen in the first group and usually get the most time to learn the combination.  The only catch is that you have to be at the audition 30 min ahead of time or else you lose your spot and have to sign up in the order in which you arrived.  Of course although I signed up ahead of time, I missed my name being called from this list.  So to the end of the line I went.  Lucky for me there was barely anyone there, so I was still only #35.

I assumed I was in the second group.  So I went to go change.  If you've ever seen Rocky Horror, you know that they wear some crazy little outfit.  Emphasis on little!  I don't have anything to crazy, so I tried my best to look cute and then went to the holding room to wait for about 45 min until it was time to go in.  The combination was something I can only describe as odd.  It was all about the drama, actings, and the character you could get into.. and it was quick.  There was this one really quick hand part, that no one seemed to be catching onto.  I've included a clip from the movie of the song we danced to for your enjoyment:

We performed the combination six at a time, and lucky for me by the time my name was called I had pretty much figured out the one section I was struggling with.  They then made a cut and I was asked to stay and sing.  Hooray! My good friend who was also asked to stay and sing had this great idea that we should rent a room to warm up in for the second part of the audition.   What an awesome concept!  Just a quick 15min to warm up and hear yourself sing your 16 bars really helps you feel prepared.  Especially this time when I was singing a song I had not yet done at an audition.
Anyways, they maybe kept a third of the girls to sing.  We lined up and one at a time went in to sing.  I sang this:

And that was it.  I think that it went pretty well.  But nerves always make you sound a little different than you do when you are not in the audition room.  But honestly I have no complaints.  Haven't heard from them, but don't much care as I really just needed a chance to prove my brain had not turned to much and to debut my new 60s/70s pop song!

My First Equity Call Back

Its been a month since I've posted. The month of May was particularly slow, and coupled with all the mental and physical exertion..lol from Radio City I have pretty much been relaxing since then.

On Monday, however, I finally got my butt up and went to an audition. It took a lot of cajoling from my biggest fan, but I got there. It was a call for Young Frankenstein the musical, created by the famous Mel Brooks, it ran on Broadway and now is touring nationally. It is the story of Frankenstein, but told with a humorous plot.

I just made it to the audition at 2pm, and there was not many people there. Granted the call was for girls 5'6" to 5'10", can you say..advantage? Anyways, there were about 30 equity girls there and about 40 non-equity girls. They tell us we will be doing tap first and take the first group of 15 equity girls in. The group takes about 25 minutes and they are apparently teaching the same combination they always teach...which would be great if I knew it, instead I'll be at a distinct disadvantage. Its no fun to be one of the only people to not already know a combination in an audition. The second group of equity girls get their turn and then it is time for the non-eq girls. Given that I was one of the last people to get there I am put in the 2nd group of non-eqs, so I have one more group to wait. I thought I had 25 minutes but as soon as the girls come in, they are coming right back out. It turns out for the non-equity girls they are just doing buck triple time steps. AWESOME!

I get in the room and they go over the time step and then line us all up and we do four time steps each one at a time all the way down the line. Then they made a cut and I was kept. The bring everyone back in the room equity and non-equity and teach us a ballet combination in character heels. Its fairly simple, balances, developpes (kicks) single turn, jete (leap). Its surprising, but you really can tell a lot about a dancer from such a simple combination. They made us go three at a time across the floor and then it was time for another cut. Yay, they keep me again.

Of course now comes my favorite part...the singing. There are about 18/60 girls left and they ask us for a traditional musical theatre song. So I chose to sing "A Little Bit in Love" from the musical Wonderful Town. (see Audra show how its done) It went awful...or at least it felt awful. All over the place register wise, but I gave it and pretty let the audition go, figuring I had blown it.

But when I got home from the audition, my cell rang and it was Tara Rubin casting calling to invite me back the next day for a call back! These people must be out of their minds!? But I graciously accepted and prepared for the next day...

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!