A few weeks ago, I went to an audition to join a local a cappella group. Since then, I had not heard from them, and I slowly made my peace with it. The audition experience alone was enough of a thrill to lessen the sting of not actually making it in. Sure, let's go with that. It's like that Who's the Boss? episode where Angela lost an advertising award to a fresh-faced newcomer, and she kept repeating, "Well, it was an honor just being nominated," as a mantra to soften the blow. But really, who remembers nominees?
But right when I had given up all hope, I got an e-mail today asking me to attend a callback audition tonight. When I got the news, I actually felt kind of deflated: what, was I not good enough to impress them the first time?
The last time I went to a callback, it was for Working, the full-blown Stephen Schwartz musical theater experience I participated in last year. The callback was a multi-part audition event of singing, dancing, and a cold-read from the script. Not to say that I was any good at the singing, but it was the only part of the evening where I didn't feel like a complete tool. I was admittedly stiff during the cold read, and the dance portion was very A Chorus Line, only instead of trying to make the directors notice me, I'm pretty sure I made them notice me, along with my two left feet and complete ignorance of dance terms. To this day, how to make a 'kick-ball-change' seem effortless remains a mystery. I can see it in my head, even describe what needs to happen, but somewhere between my head and my feet, the signal goes from 'kick and ball-change' to 'let's make an ass out of myself.'
Still, I made it into the show, and subsequently had 10 of the most thrilling, enlightening, and fun weeks ever.
On the first night of rehearsal, I met the rest of the cast, a group of amazingly talented and supportive people, and we began singing through some of the group numbers. That was the first of many, "How ever did I get here?" moments, ones I'd swear were dreams if only I sounded better. (In my dreams, of course, I'm pretty much flawless in every way.)
Through Working, appropriately enough, I learned what it meant to work hard at something I loved to, to reach the end of the day and not want to stop. On show nights, as I sat in a corner and tried to fully comprehend that in 30 minutes, I would be on stage with an actual audience, others would be warming up, stretching, doing push-ups. I felt like I was let into a secret world, the backstage world of performers that I have always wondered about. I loved watching the girls sit on the table by the mirrors and apply their makeup, the side conversations and absurd-sounding vocal warm-up exercises. I was certainly not dreaming, and I was right where I wanted to be.
Of course, the experience was not without its hiccups. Throughout the 10 weeks, I lost about 12 pounds because I didn't have time to eat on rehearsal nights. During the dance rehearsals, I strained something in my foot that still hasn't fully recovered. One night, I flubbed a line so bad that all I could do was stand there and stare out into an audience I couldn't even see past the blinding lights. Sam had the great fortune of being there that night, and he has yet to wear out the novelty of teasing me with that one. To make matters worse, I was monologuing, so the stage was empty save me, my clipboard prop, and the silence that threatened to swallow me whole. This singular moment is definitely on my list of top five most embarassing events.
Yet it does nothing to taint the memory of it all, particularly the final song of the first act on closing night and singing the line, "If my destiny had been up to me / I could've been somethin'. . ." with a quickly forming tear in my eye. That line could not have been more relevant to me, as I always wonder what I could've been had I made different choices, took a different path.
Through the Working experience, I also inadvertently learned something about myself. As much as I have loved Broadway and showtunes and everything theater, I am surprisingly not so interested in acting, even less so in dancing (or maybe I should say that dancing is less interested in me). What I really loved doing, night after night, was singing.
Which brings me back to Rapid Transit A Cappella. I said it when I first had my audition, but I'll say it again: singing in an a cappella group would be everything I've ever wanted and more. Only thing standing in the way is this callback audition. I can only hope that it goes better than my other callback experience and, ironically, that the result remains the same.
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