Too Much Talk About Music

I just got home from the Dangerous Beauty auditions and man do I feel relieved. I got all the info on this audition two weeks ago and have had that much time to think about it. On the one had, it can be nice to have that much more time to prepare, especially when they ask for 2 minutes of music, plus reading some lines. But on the other hand, that's a good amount of time to start to stress out about an audition.

Not to mention that I didn't really have any ballads or up-tempo songs that I was comfortable with or that would go over well at this audition. The one song I normally sing for auditions is kind of a power ballad, even a torch song, therefore NOT a regular ballad or up-tempo. This left me with a few choices: Take the last part of the song more briskly and pretend it's an up-tempo; sing the beginning of the song like a ballad; sing something from Chess (even though I'm not sure it's appropriate for what they're asking); or find brand new songs. So what did I choose? Well, I didn't. I prepared all of those choices.

I found one song from my AMDA days that I never sang but someone else in my class did - "Stranger To The Rain" from Children of Eden. This is a little faster than my go-to song so I took it from the bridge straight on to the end. It was more like a 1:30 but it was a good cut. Into my audition binder I also threw "Heaven Help My Heart" from Chess. That's actually not a bad ballad, I think I'll keep it in there as a just-in-case song. I put "Nobody's Side" from Chess in there too, knowing it was a definite no but at least I could sing the whole thing without forgetting anything if I ever need to. The fourth song I put in the binder was my good ole' go-to, "A New World" from Jekyll and Hyde.

Over the past week I worked on all of these things. I even dug out my keyboard and set up camp on my bed, music strewn allover my room and midi versions of each song queued up on my laptop. After reacquainting myself with all of the songs, the hardest part was to choose which songs to sing. I obviously couldn't sing "A New World" for both my ballad and up-tempo. I decided I'd definitely be doing "Stranger To The Rain", but even when I was getting ready this morning I couldn't decide on a second song.

I even decided to stray from my regular musical-theatre-audition-dress, so everything about this audition was a bit foreign to me. I did feel much better when the casting director came out to get me and told me she'd been hearing great things about me. And when I stepped into the room I got a compliment on my dress. Hooray! I went to the pianist and told him I'd start with the up-tempo, and he told me that they'd so far been doing only one song. Hooray again! I got up there and sang, and felt better than any practice run I'd done up until then. They liked the song, and then we moved onto the sides. I read through with the casting director once, was given a not by the director, and then read it again. They liked how I took the adjustment and the choices I made, and that was that!

When I left I felt confident and that's really the most important thing. I think I have a shot at it, and if not this then at least the CD has finally seen me and what I can do. Cross your fingers for me!

Lets Get This Started

I woke up yesterday feeling much better. I think I just needed to stop thinking about all of it for a while and what better way to do that than sleeping for a few hours. I even got through the whole day without feeling awful! See, it's getting better already. Part of my feeling better was probably because I wrote an email to Raul explaining how sorry I was to disappoint him and the director he was working with, and that I'd leaned to be more conscious of my prior obligations before I auditioned for something in the future. Though I haven't heard anything back, it felt good to take responsibility and touch base one more time.

My friends and family are all being very supportive about my decision. Evan keeps telling me that any choice I make is the right choice, and I suppose he's right. There's really no telling where each job will take me career wise, so all I can do is believe in the choices I make and do my best to make them the better choice. I've decided that this summer I'm going to be working on my career like never before. Along with being healthy and going to the gym, I'm going to set a deadline to get new headshots (and save up to get them printed out too, not just shot!), wrangle myself an agent and/or manager, expand my songbook, look into acting classes.... everything I can think of I'll do.

I was referred to an agent by a guy I did a student film with (which, by the way, recently won "Best Comedy" at the college level equivalent of the Emmys) so I'll be sending in my stuff this week. I found out in this week's issue of Backstage that it's very common for acting schools and conservatories to not go into the business of acting at all. I'm very lucky that AMDA actually did. A large portion of out last semester was focused on informing us about the business side of acting, and though I honestly haven't employed most of this information since graduating, I still have all my papers and notes and that helps me to feel confident. I imagine a lot of this summer will be spent re-reading all of that information that I got while in school.

My point in saying all that stuff about school is, I wrote my first cover letter yesterday. In the past I've gone to Samuel French and picked up the latest print out of agents, large envelopes, and decided who'd I thought I'd be a good fit with, but never ever sent anything out. Also, the fist headshots I ever had taken - at least 4 years ago - are the only ones I've ever had printed out in bulk. So this is the summer I update everything, including my work ethic. It's already had a slow start as of the beginning of last year, but this will be the push.