Of all the auditions I've had since moving out to the Bay Area, there has only been one theatre that didn't call me back (which I will now call Didn't Call Me Back, or DCMB). For a while, I took this as an insult, a heartbreak and a challenge. More recently, I've come to the understanding (duh) that, if I want to get better, I need to start auditioning for more places that Don't Call Me Back. Otherwise, I'm just settling.
The first time I auditioned for DCMB, I sang my usual 16 bars, which is the last part of "When Did I Fall In Love?" in Audra's key. I belt it to a B before getting in a legit G at the end. I was dry, the belt was thin and not well mixed, and (let's be honest) I hardly gave a thought to acting. (Well, truth be told, I thought about how I could connect the words/intent in the song to one of the characters in the show they were auditioning for, but I didn't really follow through.) I also walked in to the audition thinking I wasn't a good fit for any of the female leads, but wanting to be in the ensemble anyway. I'm never really sure what to sing in cases like that, so I just went with my "here's my vocal range" piece.
I had my second audition for DCMB last night. Unfortunately (excuses, excuses), it was the end of long day with more cups of coffee than my body was used to. I was so dry, and my mind and body were running on fumes. I hate singing like that. I hate how I know I'm not offering up 100%. But I gave what I had to give at that moment.
This time I got to sing two 16 bars for their upcoming shows: a modern rock-influenced musical, and a legit Sondheim show with lots of ensemble. I knew whatever I chose to sing, I wanted to focus on acting this time.
Picking a Sondheim audition piece is hard. You don't want to choose anything too well-known, because the room will have heard it a dozen times already. You don't want to choose anything too obscure, because the pianist may kill you. In the end, I went with "I Remember" from Evening Primrose: obscure enough, with relatively simple accompaniment and an acting arc vaguely similar to "Green Finch and Linnet Bird." I made some nice choices (most of which were even the ones I practiced!). But the singing was crap, the range of the 16 bars only went up to a D on the staff. If they remember me from last time or believe my resume, maybe that's enough. But it was frustrating.
Lesson learned there: I can now act a song or sing it beautifully. Pick one.
(Side note-slash-question about choosing audition rep that I should have asked before: I don't really think I'm a Johanna. Maybe I have the vocal range for it, but I don't see myself as a romantic lead, much less a young one. And I'm certainly not a Mrs. Lovett for quite a while. So, what should I be trying to 'show' in an audition? The mechanics of ensemble auditioning are so elusive and scary.)
For my uptempo, I belted out "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and gave them a low A, a belted E at the top of the staff, and a high A. And I gave them character and personality, but who even knows. I was having fun with it, but I couldn't throw away the disappointment of the other piece fast enough. I ended up feeling self-conscious and like I was singing for myself.
In the end, it boiled down to this: I had faith I sounded potentially good to a first-time listener, but I also knew how much better I could sound. I think I made some good acting choices, which is a step further than I've been before, but I took a step back in vocal prowess as a result. I also re-affirmed my notion that I can muscle my way through 2 minutes of singing no matter how empty my tank is.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
August 2005; or, the time I was smuggled into Poland
Marcin popped the question on a Tuesday, while we sat in the Alexanderplatz stereotypically eating Döner from the shop at the base of the Fernsehturm. "Want to go to the Baltic tonight?"
We were in Berlin. A trip to the Baltic meant driving 3 hours, across the border into Poland and up to the northern coast. I had never been to Poland and I knew hardly any Polish, except for the few curse words Marcin taught me the first night we went drinking. Did I want to get in the car of someone I'd only recently met, to visit a country whose language I didn't know, just to get a new stamp in my passport? Hell yes.
We started the trip around 6 after picking up our friend Ursula. Ursula was a Spanish transplant bumming around Berlin with the two of us. She and I had gone from being acquaintances to friends when we walked around Prenzlauer Berg one day looking for a piercing parlor on a whim. She got a nose stud. I got a tragus hoop. (A word to the wise for anyone who wants to get pierced in a foreign country: point at the spot you want pierced. Don't want anything to get lost in translation.)
By the time we hit the interstate, it was already dark. If I've learned anything about driving on foreign interstates, it's this: once you lose the visual cues around you, you might as well be anywhere -- Pennsylvania, Thailand, or the Czech Republic. For a while, it was a mostly silent ride, punctuated by the wind coming in through the driver's side window. (Marcin was a chain smoker and would not take a three hour trip without nicotine, so he'd rolled down the window an inch or so to ash his cigarette. Every once in a while he'd ask me to light him a new one. I never could figure out if this was his way of flirting.)
As we reached the border, Marcin asked us to hand over our passports. At his suggestion, Ursula and I stayed silent while Marcin spoke with the patrolman. There were a few tense minutes and looks, but eventually stamps were issued and we drove on into the dark, looking for a gas station to convert Euro to Zloty.
When we pulled in to the first station we saw, it was midnight. Marcin winced when he noticed a white van parked in a dark corner. He whispered a warning -- "don't look at them!" -- before heading inside. Ursula and I stared at our shoes, out of our element, and I couldn't help but smirk. In just a few hours, I'd gone from eastern Germany, reclaimed by the west for over a decade by the time I was living there, into the edge of the Eastern bloc. Of all the things I had expected to see upon entry, the Polish mafia was not one of them.
We were in Berlin. A trip to the Baltic meant driving 3 hours, across the border into Poland and up to the northern coast. I had never been to Poland and I knew hardly any Polish, except for the few curse words Marcin taught me the first night we went drinking. Did I want to get in the car of someone I'd only recently met, to visit a country whose language I didn't know, just to get a new stamp in my passport? Hell yes.
We started the trip around 6 after picking up our friend Ursula. Ursula was a Spanish transplant bumming around Berlin with the two of us. She and I had gone from being acquaintances to friends when we walked around Prenzlauer Berg one day looking for a piercing parlor on a whim. She got a nose stud. I got a tragus hoop. (A word to the wise for anyone who wants to get pierced in a foreign country: point at the spot you want pierced. Don't want anything to get lost in translation.)
By the time we hit the interstate, it was already dark. If I've learned anything about driving on foreign interstates, it's this: once you lose the visual cues around you, you might as well be anywhere -- Pennsylvania, Thailand, or the Czech Republic. For a while, it was a mostly silent ride, punctuated by the wind coming in through the driver's side window. (Marcin was a chain smoker and would not take a three hour trip without nicotine, so he'd rolled down the window an inch or so to ash his cigarette. Every once in a while he'd ask me to light him a new one. I never could figure out if this was his way of flirting.)
As we reached the border, Marcin asked us to hand over our passports. At his suggestion, Ursula and I stayed silent while Marcin spoke with the patrolman. There were a few tense minutes and looks, but eventually stamps were issued and we drove on into the dark, looking for a gas station to convert Euro to Zloty.
When we pulled in to the first station we saw, it was midnight. Marcin winced when he noticed a white van parked in a dark corner. He whispered a warning -- "don't look at them!" -- before heading inside. Ursula and I stared at our shoes, out of our element, and I couldn't help but smirk. In just a few hours, I'd gone from eastern Germany, reclaimed by the west for over a decade by the time I was living there, into the edge of the Eastern bloc. Of all the things I had expected to see upon entry, the Polish mafia was not one of them.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Songs for the next year
One of my 2011 goals was to see 50 performances (other than the ones I was involved with, of course). By December 31, I will have seen 42. Not too shabby!
This year had some great moments, many of them theatre-related. But a couple of the bad parts jabbed me pretty hard and deep, so in the end I'm ready to move on into the scary, wonderful unknown of 2012. The last year of our lives, or something.
I'm convinced that my body, 26 years old as of today, can still do anything if I really try, so this will be a year of physical reformation. Lasik got checked off the list a little early. Invisalign is in the works. I am re-setting my goal weight, for all to see and hear, at 145. I'm guessing that would make me a size 4, which is smaller than I've ever been.
I think I will try a similar theatre-going goal in 2012, but with a twist: I'd like to see as many shows as I can without paying for them. But still, you know, legally. I've enrolled as a student at Foothill, so I can get a student discount on most tickets now, but many theatres allow you to see for free in exchange for ushering or some other form of indentured servitude.
And in lieu of my 9 to 5, I am going confidently in the direction of my dreams. I am taking courses in songwriting and in-home production, in the hopes of coaxing out that musical dancing around in my head. I'm taking acting and dance classes. If time and funds permit, I hope to take so many dance classes that my face falls off and my mind no longer has the time or energy to be afraid of it. My dance skills continue to be one of my greatest regrets.
In fact, that sounds like a good mantra for the next year. 2012: the year I pummel some long-held regrets.
This year had some great moments, many of them theatre-related. But a couple of the bad parts jabbed me pretty hard and deep, so in the end I'm ready to move on into the scary, wonderful unknown of 2012. The last year of our lives, or something.
I'm convinced that my body, 26 years old as of today, can still do anything if I really try, so this will be a year of physical reformation. Lasik got checked off the list a little early. Invisalign is in the works. I am re-setting my goal weight, for all to see and hear, at 145. I'm guessing that would make me a size 4, which is smaller than I've ever been.
I think I will try a similar theatre-going goal in 2012, but with a twist: I'd like to see as many shows as I can without paying for them. But still, you know, legally. I've enrolled as a student at Foothill, so I can get a student discount on most tickets now, but many theatres allow you to see for free in exchange for ushering or some other form of indentured servitude.
And in lieu of my 9 to 5, I am going confidently in the direction of my dreams. I am taking courses in songwriting and in-home production, in the hopes of coaxing out that musical dancing around in my head. I'm taking acting and dance classes. If time and funds permit, I hope to take so many dance classes that my face falls off and my mind no longer has the time or energy to be afraid of it. My dance skills continue to be one of my greatest regrets.
In fact, that sounds like a good mantra for the next year. 2012: the year I pummel some long-held regrets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)