Sunday, January 28, 2007

Another audition under my belt.

Today's audition was for the company doing a Condensed Mikado overlapping with Merry Widow. I thought I sang pretty well, especially given that I'd been having a lot of crud problems when I first started singing this morning, but I hit a first with this audition: when I finished, the director (or maybe the MD; they didn't introduce themselves) asked me to sing it again but louder. He said "the acting was fine" but I seemed to be holding back; he wanted me to give him both barrels! I had sorta dialed it down, both for dramatic reasons and because it was a low-ceilinged room w/ cinderblock walls, but I did as I was told. The director even gave me an occasional "gimme all ya got" gesture as I was singing. Felt funny, but fortunately the singing still felt good.

The dance part of the audition went pretty well, too, though one movement gave me trouble because it depended on the use of a muscle I'd pulled during yesterday's rehearsal. The muscle hadn't bothered me at all today until we got to that point in the combination. Now it hurts to try to raise my right leg, which is gonna be problematic stepping into and out of trousers and climbing stairs.

I was there quite a bit longer than I'd expected. I was in the first batch of 10; each of us sang our bit, then they herded us off to church's social hall to learn the dance combination. After spending about half an hour on that, the directors, accompanist and board president came in to watch us dance. The choreographer had us split into 2 groups and each group got to do the combination twice. All told, it probably took at least an hour and a half from the time the first person sang to the time they released us after the dance piece. I think that's the first time I've auditioned for this company that I didn't just sing my bit and leave. The fact that they're including dance gives me hope for how much dance will be in Merry Widow. (Now to hope that they cast me....)

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