Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Musical Mission Step Two: Have a good audition


Going to a buttload of Equity Chorus Calls mean nothing if you never get into the room. Though I suppose it's a nice change from waking up at 1pm because your cat is hungry.

Monday I actually had a by-appointment audition for a musical. As in a, "we've seen your resume and we have already decided not to kick you out," kind of situation. So though my "Musical Mission" (good God I'm clever) is 24 days in, Monday was the first time I have actually been able to sing with a piano player.

By-appointment auditions continue to make me laugh. You travel for an hour on the subway, and then you're in and you're out in less than 15 minutes. It's like I was picking up my dry cleaning or something. I really showed up, dropped my stuff in the hallway, filled out the audition form, read through the sides twice, and then the monitor asked me, "are you ready?"

I sang "Stars and the Moon" from Songs for a New World, because I know it really well, I've done it a bunch before and I thought it was a smart idea since I'm out of practice, and I kind of have a cold. In the end I had trouble staying on tempo with the accompanist (Jason Robert Brown music is needlessly complicated) but I just went for it. I figured she'd catch up to me.

The director looked at my resume and said, "You haven't done any musicals? You've got a great voice."

The experience left me feeling good.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Musical Mission Step One: Go see a show


January is almost over so I bet you're all wondering if I've taken any steps yet in my New Year's Resolution to get back into musicals.

And nothing makes me more excited and inspired, and simultaneously miserable that it's not me on that stage, it's seeing a Broadway show. Especially a Broadway show I've always wanted to see.

The Boyfriend bought us orchestra seats to Wicked. ORCHESTRA seats. I could have been spit on. Best Friend Jen and I used to play the soundtrack nonstop in our dorm room sophomore year, but I haven't actually listened to it in a while. Seeing the show just brought back all the memories of how I used to listen to the CD, fantasizing about playing Elphaba on Broadway.

I saw Jackie Burns in the role, and she killed it. She was better than Idina Menzel, in my opinion. Especially singing No Good Deed, which has always been my favorite song in the show.

The experience did exactly what I'd hoped it would do. It re-lit the fire under my ass. I was so excited to be seeing a Broadway show again that I actually burst into tears during the opening number.

ONWARD!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

First steps towards my New Year's Resolution...

Internet, bear witness to this.

On Tuesday January 10th there is a Musical Theatre Audition Seminar with Telsey and Co. I've already registered and I'm going.

The EPA for Legally Blonde is that day at noon.

I'm going to both of them, I don't care how sleepy I am when I get up on Tuesday morning. I publish it on the internet for all to see. If I don't go, hurl tomatoes and other rotten fruit at me via email or tweet.

On Thursday January 12th there is an EPA for Jesus Christ Superstar, which I could theoretically go to before work. I don't have to be at The Restaurant until 3:30. Plenty of time to get typed out beforehand.

I'm going to it.

And the best part is an audition for another musical coming up on Monday January 23rd, which is by-appointment-only. Definitely going to that, I don't think I need the threat of being pelted by virtual fruits and vegetables to give me motivation.

So I've got all the auditions waiting for me, I've just got to get over the pesky fact that I haven't sung with a live piano player in over a year, and I lost my voice on New Year's Eve screaming off a roof in Astoria.

Minor problems.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

The New Year's Resolution Blog Entry.

There was no musical theatre program at my college. That isn't to say that there were no musical theatre-themed classes at SUNY New Paltz. There were several, and I took them all. There was just no Musical Theatre concentration as far as majors go.

While I was there I took Voice for Theatre (One and Two--I took Two twice), Musical Theatre Workshop and Musical Theatre Singing Ensemble (which was this awesome choral class where we did all the big group numbers.)

All the classes focused on acting the song, and not so much on technique. This is a clip from my senior year final, when I did Sally Bowles from Cabaret.



My freshman year a friend of mine named Roxie was taking Musical Theatre Workshop. Her assignment was to hop the train down to the city one day and go to an actual audition. Best Friend Jen and I decided to go with her. We thought it would be fun.

It was an open call for Ragtime, and Jen was a big fan. We had no headshots, and so we printed our best available Facebook profile pictures onto 8 1/2 by 11 paper and slapped together resumes with High School credits on them.

The audition was at Ripley Grier, and in the grand tradition of Open Calls, we were two out of 700 hundred girls and young women, all of whom looked a lot like us. We were there all day, and we didn't get to sing. Instead we were typed out.

But it's our first audition. We are tourists in Times Square, too mesmerized by the flashy billboards and neon lights to notice that it's crowded, nobody seems to know how to walk and it kind of smells funny.

We did one musical a year at SUNY New Paltz, usually the first production of the fall semester. My freshman year auditions were the first week of classes, I really didn't know what I was doing. Sophomore year I made it to the final four girls called back to play Dot in "Sunday in the Park with George." Junior year I got Reno in "Anything Goes," and senior year I played Penny in "Urinetown."

I have a good voice, though I've never been trained, and by the time I left school I was confident that I could hold my own in a musical theatre audition. But after a few years it seemed like I was going to that Ragtime audition over and over again. Sitting in a waiting room among 700 hundred more qualified girls, with a mediocre headshot and not enough musicals on my resume.

I couldn't afford the voice lessons, and what good did they do when I just got typed out every time I got in the room? So I stopped. I was booking film work, and comedy, so I thought that might be enough.

But recently I went to go see a show that got me thinking again. An entertainer a greatly admire just released an album, the contents of which are new arrangements of old musical theatre standards. Little-known Sinatra and Sound of Music stuff, and at the end of the show I got to meet the composer who'd done all the arrangements. The whole thing got me thinking about musical theatre and how much I miss it, and I've decided that this would be my New Year's Resolution.

I am going to book a musical by next year. Maybe not Broadway, but here's hoping. And in reaching for that goal, I'm going to see about voice lessons, and dance classes. I'm really going to try to turn myself back into a musical theatre performer, hopefully minus the pretentiousness.

Game on.