OOOH. It was a rough wake-up when that alarm went off at 6 am. Today was an open-call extravaganza and I was determined to get seen...and that I did! I left the apartment at 6:55 with probably the worst hair I've ever called my own. I mean, really, New York hates my hair. Or does my hair just hate the winter? The Nor'Easter as they like to call it here? My ball of frizz was a sad, sad scene. More on that to come. I went to NOLA studios (after walking the 8 avenues to get there, because remember, i don't believe in transferring) and arrived there around 7:20 to be #13 on the unofficial list that was hanging on the door. The studio didn't open till 8:30 so I was left with more than an hour to pace around in the cold sludge. I first went to Kinkos and made some copies, then went and got some more coffee and a bottle of water, then walked around the block a few times before picking up a copy of my new favorite magazine, Time Out New York, at Duane Reade and cutting myself on one last venti tea at Starbucks. Every warm place I went into I ended up spending money! The monitor for the audition was really, really nice, almost suspiciously nice. But he honored our list and in fact kept thanking us for arriving so early. Nice, but WEIRD. In the holding room I met a nice girl Megan who is from Southern California. More on her later. Who should walk in the door but sweet RJ? It was so fun spending a few hours with him and catching up on his life. Because I was #13 and we were only singing 16 bars I was out of there by 10:30. I got a heartfelt "Lovely, thank you" but no callback. Honestly their season is not really right for me but a callback would feel warm and fuzzy regardless.
I went straight to Chelsea Studios and signed myself and new-friend-Megan up for the Hilton Head production of "Fiddler on the Roof." Time to cash in on all those assumptions that I'm a good Jewish girl. The non-equity women's call wasn't going to start until 3:30 so I went home to just taste the gym before doing some hair 911. I had seen a girl with my hair on a great day at NOLA that morning. I asked her what the secret was and she told me she used some drugstore gel that I hadn't tried yet. I went on a mission to find just that and failing, decided to take a chance on some Suave...shhh...yes, I'm really saying it out loud...MOUSSE!!! Huge improvement. Not feeling like a frizzy poodle, I jaunted back to Chelsea Studios where by the time they got to us lowly non-equity girls, we were allowed a whole 8 bars to sing. OOOOH.....that pretty much makes for girls all singing the same 10 words and then a high note at the end. Apparently whatever everyone was singing was getting tiresome because the pianist came in the holding room and gave a little lecture that all the high notes were not really appropriate. Too bad that is all I do. I sang 8 glorious bars of "If I loved you" and got another "thank you" with yet again, no callback. But I did have fun at that audition running into nearly all of the girls from the oppression tap musical callback and enjoying also my new friend Megan. And my favorite non-equity new friend, Emily, from last week also showed up. It was so nice to see her and get a hug! I hope that we can be true buddies. It's a funny thing...some of these girls that you see everywhere are nice and newsy on a certain level...like a "what are you doing? and what should i be doing that you're not? and what callbacks are you getting?" and then others have potential for true friendship. I see Emily in the latter category.
I got out of there by about 4:45 and reflected on my day...a whole day of waiting and prepping for a grand total of 24 bars of music...amazing!
I had a few hours to kill before my first "The Gym" class nearby Chelsea. I wandered around about 8 blocks popping into stores before realizing my hunger. I somehow resisted the pull of Trader Joes, even though I was in Union Square, but went into Whole Foods and got an amazing piece of whole-wheat, cheeseless, roasted-veggie pizza. YUM. So good. I went upstairs to the picnic area to eat and it was around 5:45 and there were no seats anywhere. Well, I spotted one in the middle of a large table and went to sit down. In a typical bizarro NYC moment, my new friend Mitch from church was staring across from me. He was on break from his new job at Strand Books (where Claire Danes was apparently spotted this week) with a co-worker. So crazy! It was such a blessing to chat with them and feel so connected to this wild city. They had to go back to work and I prepped myself for class, anticipating hard questions about my song.
Class was soooo great. I love it and I'm so inspired to learn and grow and not be a perfect opera singer but instead have conversations and problems and uncomfortable moments in my songs. And then maybe I'll stop being lovely and start being called back! The teacher, John Ruocco, was awesome and so quick on his feet with each girl. There are 8 of us and I went last being pretty scared about how undefined my story was for my songs and feeling pretty inadequate next to the focused acting of the others. The pianist was amazing and gave me tons of tips for songs to learn. I am going to the library tomorrow! Eek. I'm excited.
And now I'm trying to wind down after all that excitement and so to that end I'm going to try to go to bed....sweet dreams!
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