I Feel it in My Fingers...

Passed Bill Nighy in the street today. I love living in London!

And the Results Are In

Well after much anticipation the cast list was finally posted this morning. And as expected there was quite the uproar. Where to start. Hmmmm. Several students, including myself, had expressed the hope that we would be sent the cast list in the evening. Mostly so that we could take the time to read the list ourselves and assimilate the information before talking to our classmates. This would give us the opportunity to either celebrate or be disappointed on our own time. However, this is not the way things happened. We were sent an e-mail at some point in the morning, during our dance class. And since no one in this technological age can seem to put their phone down (even in a DANCE class) someone saw the news and immediately spread the word. This meant that half of the class rushed to their own phones, and then started talking about it. Consequently, I didn't even get to read the cast list for myself before someone informed me that I hadn't gotten the part I had hoped for. To be fair, that was an unintentional side effect of her excitement for the person standing right next to me. But it was still a bit disappointing. However I am still quite pleased with the outcome of the auditions. I did not get the role of Dot, but I was cast as Yvonne. One of the largest female roles in the show, aside from Dot. And, unlike Dot, my role was not double cast, so I get to do all of the shows. I think it will be quite fun. She has some great bits, and a really lovely scene towards the end of Act I. Also I get to play opposite my friend John, which will be a lot of fun! So all in all, not a bad day! However we now get to the plot twist. And, while this does not affect me directly it is not a happy one. About two hours later (we were still in this dance class) we were sent a second e-mail, with a second cast list. There weren't a huge number of differences, however the changes that had been made were noticeable. This is perhaps the worst mistake our instructors have made yet. Its one thing to accidentally send out your blunt notes, its another thing entirely to cast someone and then give the role to someone else. It was not good. And of course on top of that we had all of the usual disappointments and frustrations the come when not everyone can be cast in the roles that they would prefer. We are still hearing all of the comments about how another show should have been chosen, how the people casting the show have their own biases etc etc etc. People have been gearing for this announcement for the last three months, so it is no wonder that emotions were running high today. Right. So that is that. We start straight in on music rehearsals over the next week or so. In the meanwhile we still have to prepare for our audition exam next week. On top of that my friend Jill let me know that Royal Caribbean is holding auditions for Hairspray next week, and I believe she and I are going to go. This will be my first professional audition in a year, which is exciting. And the show is a lot of fun. I have thought about auditioning for cruise ships at several points over the last few years. If nothing else it would be a good way to start chipping away at my student loans! I would prefer to find a way to stay in London, but a job is a job (and what with the new visa laws that may prove incredibly difficult). Lets just see what happens at the audition.

No News is No News

Auditions are done, and now the waiting game is in full swing. I made it through the weekend unscathed. Not only did I manage to not drive myself crazy thinking about the auditions I was quite productive and had a really nice weekend. I awoke yesterday morning refreshed, relaxed and raring to go! My long audition day started right off the bat at 11 with my biggest role of the day. I then had audition slots throughout the rest of the day. As the day the roles got progressively smaller, as did the time slots and the breaks in between. At the beginning I had a 10 minute slot and then a two hour break. By the end of the day I had 2 minute slots with 15 minutes in between. To be honest, it was rather gruelling. All in all I felt pleased with my work. I walked into the room completely prepared. I knew the music inside and out (no easy feat with Sondheim) and had memorized my sides. I had done my research and made my character choices. I didn’t make any major mistakes in the room, and I think I came across well. Everyone was in high spirits throughout the day, which really helped. No one got catty at the last moment. Everyone encouraged everyone else. And by the end of the day, as people became tired and punchy, it had basically turned into a big party. They only called in a handful of people for recalls, although they assured us that this was by no means a short list for any of the roles. I did not get a recall. I am a bit bummed about that. Especially as they started reading Georges and Dots together. So while they say that things are still open to change I am guessing that I am no longer in consideration for that role. We are still waiting for the cast list however. Originally we were told it would go out later that night (which I thought was ambitious of them), then that it would take a day or two. We all figured that we would get the cast list today, as music rehearsals start tomorrow. However we have just received word that we will not get the list until tomorrow at lunch. I was really hoping that they would let us know in the evening. So that we were not all gathered together to receive the news. I would like to have a few minutes to digest the information, to either celebrate or be disappointed, before I have to talk to everyone else about it. Well we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Updated clip

I was informed that the youtube clip I posted only had about half of my song. So here is the updated link. This one has both the scene and song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-uzGnQbg6U

Weekend Woes

Well here we go. Into what may possibly be one of the most painful weekends to date this year. The George auditions are on Monday, and I have to get through the next few days without driving myself insane. So far things are going well. Here is the breakdown. I am auditioning for 6 roles (5 in the first act, 1 in the second), which means that I need to have prepped for auditions on Monday 4 songs and 8 scenes. I have to learn both parts for a couple of the scenes. For example for Dot I need to know pages 48-55, however I need to learn pages 50-52 as Yvonne as well. At the moment I am feeling prepared on all of the songs and 2 of the scenes. This weekend will be dedicated to learning the rest of the scenes. We have been given the schedule for Monday, the breakdown of times for each part. And frankly I am a little perplexed by their method here. Everyone is called for multiple roles. Originally we were led to believe that we would each get a time slot and they would see as much as they could, starting with our biggest role, in that time. Then if they needed to see more or different material (for example the characters we didn’t have time for the first go round) there would be callbacks, or recalls as they are here, in the afternoon. They have made things much more complicated for themselves. They are going role by role, calling one person in at a time, through every single part. The beginning of the day starts with 10 minutes each for the leads, and ends with 2 minute slots for the smaller parts. They are going to lose so much time with people going in and out that I think we are going to have to give up on the schedule half way through the day. It also means that all of my auditions are at least an hour apart throughout the day. It is going to be a loooooooong day. At 4:30 they are going to announce recalls, and then they only have an hour of those. Then music rehearsals start two days later. They have also hinted that we will find out casting that evening. I will be incredibly impressed if things actually work out that way. I thought we had some tight turn-arounds at ACT! (I am particularly missing being on that side of the table right about now) I plan on taking a dance class immediately after auditions end, to prevent myself from checking my e-mail every 5 minutes for the rest of the evening. On the other hand, they have been building up this process for the last three months, so I am really ready to be done with it. They announced the show in December, and told us to familiarize ourselves with it. So like the dedicated student I am, I started working on the music then. That’s a long time to be working on one audition. I just have to remember how prepared I am, and not try and figure out what the people on the other side of the table are thinking. I won’t be able to guess the casting ahead of time, so I need to stop trying. Right so aside from the time I have allocated to work on scenes, I need to figure out what to do with myself this weekend. Are there any good movies out? Unfortunately the Hunger Games doesn’t come out until the end of the month. I am currently reading the books to prepare. I need to think of places that I have not explored yet. A few of my friends have decided to go out of town this weekend, which I am beginning to think might have been a good idea for myself. Ah well it might be too late for that. I'll find something. In other news, I did not get picked to compete in the Sondheim prize. I am pretty disappointed about that. In the end they chose two guys, instead of a guy and a girl, which is an interesting choice. I did ask for some feedback, and didn’t hear anything new. So I just have to keep working. On a brighter note, we keep getting nice weather here. So hopefully some of this weekend will be spent outside!

I'm Ready for My Close Up

Hi all, for anyone who was interested in seeing my showcase performance you can find the video here. The video clip contains my scene from Arthur Millers A View From the Bridge, and my song On the Steps of the Palace from Into the Woods. Things are very slowly creeping back to equilibrium after showcase and our research projects. Very slowly. I dont think we will reach stasis until after the auditions for Sunday in the Park with George next Monday. Right now we are in the middle of many auditions. Starting yesterday we have a big audition every week for the next three weeks. Yesterday was the audition for the Sondehim Prize, next monday is George, and the following week is the auditioning exam. Everyone is sort of freaking out about any and all of these. I'm off to the practice rooms right now to prep for all of these auditions. I just have to make it through the next few weeks....

The Big '?'

Right so let’s dive in. The last two weeks have been majorly stressful. I think it will continue along in this vein for another 3 weeks at least. Let’s hope it calms down after that. So, showcase. Duh duh duh (scary movie sound effects). Well this was the big event. They have been leading up to this for months, saying that showcase is possibly the most important performance of the year. All sorts of fun encouraging things like that and 'you really want to have an agent by the end of the year, and showcase is the way to do that'. So the pressure was on. Music and scene finally chosen and rehearsed. The outfit chosen, and let me tell you that took a long time. Everything is blocked, teched and ready to go. Everyone is stressed and cranky. And we finally hit showcase week. We had three performances. Two on Wednesday and one on Thursday. I think they went pretty well. I felt pretty good about my performances but not phenomenal. I second guessed myself a bit, both because of the complications when choosing my song, and from the number of people who were directing. It was a case of too many cooks, especially towards the end. I think we worked on our scenes with 5 different coaches, and our songs with just about as many. So, needless to say not all of them are going to agree on what works. And well, it got a bit confusing! Especially when, as we got closer to the performance, we had more and more feedback and less and less time to actually work on the pieces. This is only natural, as the performance itself gets closer the director has to focus on the technical side of everything and rely on the work that has already been done. It was just tough with so many new voices chiming at the last second to assimilate and apply everything. Well it is over. I was content with my performance, and certainly pleased about the fantastic review I got in the stage two days later. I am less pleased about the fact that only 12 agents came to the showcase (after we collectively invited a couple hundred). I am a little bit disappointed that no one took any of my headshots or resumes. I can’t let this get my down though. Our showcase was held a good two months before most of those by other programs. I think this contributed to the low turnout. Also it is possible that those who did come are planning on waiting to see the other showcases before making any decisions. Well whatever the cause I haven’t heard from anyone yet, so its on to bigger and better ways of getting attention! Last week was filled with frantic researching. Our group research projects were due yesterday, and what with the showcase and all, no one really did any work on the projects until last Monday. So that was a fun thing. Scrambling to finish our project, which only vaguely resembled the one that we started out with while also trying to find ways to make it entertaining was a less than ideal task. I am not going to lie, this was my least favorite thing all year. I don’t want to think about it anymore, so I am going to move on to more interesting things. Next up on our class agenda are three sets of auditions. In order they are the Sondheim Prize, Sunday in the Park with George and our audition exam. Sondheim is next Monday, George the following, and I think the exam is the week after. Something like that. So, lots of stuff to work on. They finally announced who was getting called for which part for George. This has been a source of much debate since we have come back from Christmas. So it is nice to finally know. I really am ready to just be done with the wondering and get the auditions over with. They have drawn out the suspense more than long enough. Right so I was called in for several things, which is nice. I am going to get to audition for Dot which I was really hoping would be the case. I am also called for the Celeste one and two, Yvonne, Louise, Frieda and Harriet. So, lots of different things. Overall I am pleased with their decisions. What I am not so happy about is the fact that our course leaders cannot seem to proofread before they send documents to the entire class. So here's what happened. A few weeks ago, while we were still deciding what everyone was performing in the showcase, all of the students were sent what was supposed to be a schedule for the next day. What they sent was, yes the schedule, but it had all of their candid notes about the pieces that all of us were working on. This was a document that was obviously not meant to be seen by any of the students (We were immediately sent another e-mailing saying 'Important: don’t read that document!' so naturally everyone then went and read it). There were things on there like 'really amateur, he should try acting' and 'shrill' and 'boring'. Now it’s one thing that they made the notes, that doesn’t really bother me. It’s the fact that they sent it to everyone! That is sort of a big boo-boo. Now this time around it was not nearly so bad. When they sent us the breakdown of which sides everyone should look at, in the list of people called for Dot there was a question mark after my name. Bummer. You know, I have worked on the other side of the table, I know that with several people casting a show that not everyone is going to agree on each person. I am fine with the fact that someone had reservations about calling me for the role (disappointed, but fine). What I don’t appreciate is that then they made it public. I was the only person with a question mark, although I am sure there must have been other notes throughout the document that then got deleted before it was sent to us. They were just careless. It’s not really a big deal. I mean, I get to audition for the role, which is what I wanted. And it does give me an excuse to find out what exactly I can work on before the auditions, which in a way is kind of nice. It’s just that things are a bit rough with the course all the way around at the moment. There is a lot of unrest among the students, and most of it stems from stuff like this. Carelessness and disorganization. Well enough about that. Right now I am just trying to focus on getting all of this audition material up to scratch. So I have my work cut out for me this week, but it is the kind of work that I love. I am really ready to dive in and get going. My goal for this week, staying positive. Here I go.