4 audition Tuesday!

I really hate open calls. I mean, I know it's great and all that I don't have to wait for the Equity people to go first, and we all have the same opportunity, yada, yada...but there is always just this spirit of frenzy and desperation that drives me to drink. Well, coffee, at least. I started the morning EARLY (because you have to go earlier for these crazy open calls) at Chelsea Studios, signing up on the non-eq tour auditions for Annie and 42nd Street. Both are not shows completely great for me, but I figure at least I could play Grace Farrell in "Annie." Or not. Anyways, I was lucky to find a chair in the teeny-tiny holding room for Annie (because at open calls, there are no rules, and no one really cares) and waited and waited. My morning entertainment came in the form of a 6 foot German woman named Uta who was just visiting NYC and decided to come to an open call for the experience. Hey folks, it's the newest tourist attraction. One day you do the Sex and the City tour, the next day you go to the Met, the following day, hit an open call with a bunch of crazy actors who enjoy suffering! Hilarious! She was so funny and kept asking me lots of questions. At one point she asked if I had a "rubber?" I suggested that she might not want to use that term so early in the morning! She meant an eraser, of course. :) I ended up singing for 42nd St. first and did great on my idea of my more belty song "de-lovely" but then was asked for more of a belt to which I suggested "not afraid" my poppy song that I had screwed up the day before. Well I screwed it up again!!!! Because again, I was trying on the singing and not on the acting! Oh well. They were nice at least. I sang "de-lovely" for the Annie people who were peculiar in that they actually wanted you singing to their faces...this is usually an audition no-no as most auditors feel assaulted if you communicate at them directly. It was an odd experience especially since the two people in charge were looking at eachother and my resume which made it hard to look at them....but whatever. I sang well and they seemed to like it "really nice pipes", bla bla bla, but no callback.
Kat met me there and we went uptown for an audition on the West Side for Millbrook Playhouse, a summer stock theatre in PA. I was so excited to walk out of the elevator and see Carolyn, Seri's sister-in-law, as the monitor. So fun! She just got a new job assisting Stephen, the artistic director of Millbrook and Vital Theatre Co. I love that it is such a small world. Carolyn came into my audition and I have to say it made me really nervous. I think I care a lot more about what she thinks about me than what they did. Because I'm getting used to singing for the anonymous "them" you know? I sang my ballad "jam" and then they asked for something more contemporary...I pulled out that pop mess again and sang all the right words! Woo hoo! Victory. Judging by their reaction and Carolyn's I didn't think I was stellar but then a few hours later Carolyn left me a message and said I was called back!!! yay!
I had one more audition appointment that afternoon, back at Chelsea, and I was sad that it was right smack in the middle of Bible Study. But an appointment is a grand thing! I was auditioning for "06880 the musical" about wealthy CT high school kids. They seemed to like me but no call-back. That's the thing...everyone seems to like you, you know...but are they just being overly nice? Hmmmm. The excitement there was that I saw Kate from Grease Academy. She was auditioning for Maine State. I wish I had heard her sing through the door! I'm sure I'll be seeing more of her and the other Grease castaways in the days to come!
Earlier in the day, an abandoned building had collapsed on 116th street and Lexington and because of that the East-side subway line was totally screwed up. They shut down service uptown for a while and by the time I went home it was a real mess. I couldn't even get on a train at 28th street because of the crowds and ended up walking to Grand Central before getting on an express train. I needed to go only 2 stops and the ride took about 35 minutes! Craziness. But we had beautiful beautiful weather. At one point I even considered walking the 70+ blocks. Spring definitely came alive on Tuesday...I loved walking past all the opened restaurants and seeing joy spread all around...Adrienne and I celebrated with some Tasti-D!