One at a Time

On average, we dance in groups of 4 as the auditors judge us. Sometimes 5 or 6, sometimes 3. Twice I've had to dance in groups of ten. At an audition for the Metropolitan Opera ballet corp the auditors picked dancers out individually from about seventy dancers learning the combination (those selected were asked to leave). But usually the groups are small enough that the auditor could watch you, but you've never sure if they actually do.

At the West Side Story audition this week (it’s coming back to Broadway), we danced one at a time. A very short, two eight-count combination across the floor, one dancer right after another. Professional dancers like to be looked at. Some deep psychological need for attention draws us to the stage. So why did girls exit the room stunned, many shaking their head and muttering "that was brutal?"

I attended the call for Jet girls, as opposed to the Shark girls, who get more stage time and the chance to shake their skirts in 'America,' one of the most vibrant, danceable numbers in Broadway history. Alas, to be a Shark girl you must pass for Puerto Rican, in line with the ethnic gang warfare plot. The Jets combination consisted of some simple snaps, jumps, a clap, sashe, single turn, ending in a kick followed by a sustained arabesque.

The choreographer seemed to be watching the dancers without really seeing them. We followed the progression of the cards from his hand either to the bottom of the pile, or, on occasion, to his assistant. The decision seemed to be made before the actually challenging part of the combination, and the relation between quality of dancing and promotion to the kept pile was murky. In my group, he kept the two dancers he made a big demonstration of already knowing, and about five girls that sort of looked alike, though it was hard to explain exactly in what way.

So what was so brutal? Being individually acknowledged then pointedly rejected? Or did we still not feel really acknowledged? Was our arabesque lacking, or were we instantly sorted by type, by hair color, skin tone, and other uncontrollable aspects of our face and body? We hadn't the time to really dance, to create a performance. But within ten minutes of entering the room we were told no thank you. The quickness was a blessing for our busy schedules, but it left us in a bit of shock and sort of sad.

Through a volunteer organization, I teach dance workshops to underserved kids. As part of our teaching philosophy, we try to notice each child in our forty-five minutes together and give specific positive feedback -- Natalie, that was a very creative jump you did across the floor, or Luis, I saw how focused and attentive you were throughout the entire class. I am so proud of you. We assume these kids, from homeless shelters and poverty stricken neighborhoods, don't get enough positive attention elsewhere.

I was in a crowded ballet class one day and started craving this feedback about my dancing. I rarely get comments from teachers in class, and even during a brief solo at an audition, I still don't feel noticed. I am not living in transitional housing with stressed out parents and teachers, so I shouldn't need this affirmation. But sometimes I do.

Legally Blonde and Other Great Movies-to-Musicals

Omigod you guys! Legally Blonde is totally today. In high ponytail, orange cheer skirt and purple converse, there is no way I am as old as my upcoming birthday says. The characters of this bouncy musical have come to life next to me in the a group of lip-gloss sharing blondes who are like so-totally-annoyed they shriek you-so-cannot-be-serious when the non-union dancers are kicked out of the holding room until their turn two hours later.

We learn a cheerleader turned pussycat-doll routine (remember it’s not dark sexy, but happy sexy the associate choreographer reminds us). It's fun with butt bumping and sass, though awkward at times, especially since we walk forward at the beginning and almost end up in the auditionees laps.

After all the groups dance, before they make the cut, they ask me and three others to do it one more time. I sass is up as much as I can, but I am still cut. Which makes me even more bummed out, since there was something about me that they liked, but on closer inspection not so much.

But it's really a silly show I tell myself, like so many movies-turned-musicals. Cry-Baby, Leap of Faith and 9-to-5 are imminent, with more on the works. Rumored to be coming soon:

- Sister Act (can I be Whoopi?)

- Spider-Man (with a score by Bono)

- Catch Me If You Can

- TV shows Colombo and Designing Women

And my favorite: Rocky! Better work on my boxing…

"I just want to dance!"

Not So Positive Thinking

Two auditions at 10 am today - Sacramento Music Circus's summer season, and a 50^th Anniversary tribute concert of an iconic American musical. I go with the former because it's close, in Connecticut, and more suited to my the type than the singing heavy musicals like Sweeney Todd and Evita at SMC. But if things go quickly, maybe I can hit both.

I signed up a week before and I show up before 9:30 so I'm in the first group. It is a rare coed call, and surprisingly, there are more boys than girls, since many ladies chose SMC.

A few minutes after ten we enter the room. The choreographer explains that the director is in a production meeting next door, so after we learn the combination, instead of making cuts as usual, we will be sent out to wait while the other groups learn. Annoying.

Even more annoying 45 minutes later, after all three groups have learned the combination, we are brought back in and told the director is still in his meeting, so let's just run the dance a few more times to stall. Because we have nothing better to do apparently.

I'm sorry, but when you arrange for over 100 unemployed dancers to be at a certain location, dressed and warmed up at a certain time, you owe them the respect of pausing your meeting with your set designer that could be held at any time and walking a few studios over and not wasting our time.

But I am trying to be positive, so I patiently perfect my routine, and within ten minutes the director graces us with his presence.

We do the simple ballet, but I hop on the double pirouette, almost falling out of it. After they explain his is a concert version and we are looking for very specific roles (all the more reason not to keep us waiting), I am cut. So I could have been cut for not being the desired type. But I am furious at myself for biffing the pirouette. The floor was slippery and the step into the turn awkward, but come on, I've been doing double pirouettes for like 20 years now, I take ballet multiple times a week where I execute them without a problem, so why do I screw it up now when it matters?

In the elevator, a fellow dancer is fuming. He complains about the wasted hour. I join in, condemning the director's rudeness. He notes the kept dancers weren't great anyway. I agree. Now I am angry at the director and not at myself. And that's okay. Lesson for the day: If you can't be positive, blame someone else, or the screwy system. I'm not lazy, and I shouldn't beat myself up. I wouldn't want to work for that jerk anyway.

Positive Thinking

Someone recently advised me to try to keep control of my audition experience. Which means focusing on aspects of the audition than other getting a job, which I can't control. Then I can decide if I was successful whether or not I get cut.

Yesterday I had two auditions to try out this new strategy out. Why do I go to auditions?

- Number one reason: To get a job

But this doesn't happen that often, so to keep up my morale, I try to accomplish the following:

- Practice my audition skills
- See my friends
- Get a work-out
- Be a positive influence on the other auditionees who are often also miserable

And , more recently

- Get material for my blog

The first audition was for Surflight Theater's summer season. It doesn't pay too well, but it's on the beach and not too far from Manhattan. The call time was 9:30 am (9 am to get your audition card), which is odd, usually auditions are at 10am, and though it was only a half hour difference it felt early.

Having signed up a week earlier at the Equity building, I was in the first group. Which is good because it was a long audition. First a ballet combo, and not across the floor we-can-explain-it-in-two sentences ballet, but a fairly complicated, long, big movements-in-a -small-crowded-space combo. We do that in groups of six groups of five - I think the choreographer wrote something on my card, hopefully something good - then we change our shoes and learn a fairly long tap combination. We do that in groups, then change our shoes again for a swing combination. (Most regional theaters produce a whole seasons of shows in a summer, so they're looking for performers that can be in musicals ranging from 'Will Rogers Follies,' to 'Swing.')

Over an hour later, we go outside, the next group goes in the room to learn the audition combination, and we wait outside while the director and choreographer talk about us. I get cut (they seem to be taking shorties for 'Swing' and tallies for 'Producers' and 'Will Rogers Follies,' but who knows), but I feel okay because in the two hours I was there I accomplished all my other goals. I did some serious dancing, including tap which I don't take class of as often as I should, I am sweaty and exercised , I caught up with some good friends, and I complimented two girls whose dancing was amazing but got cut.

At 3 pm (another odd time, usually afternoon auditions start at 2), I audition for a White Plains (very local) production of 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.' The combo is a fun , sassy, we-are-secretaries-of-the-early-sixties-who-revel-in-our -sexual-power-but-we-have-control to 'A Secretary is Not a Toy.' We are encouraged to play it up. Along with the friendly assistant choreographer, our audition is watched by the female choreographer and director, along with two men in suits (the producers) who are having the time of their life watching sexy girls in leotards shamelessy flirt.

I am cut, but again, I feel okay. They only want sexy blondes, a fellow rejectee in the tiny dressing room complains. She is not doing so great. Is there something wrong with my face, she asks. Would someone just tell me. I commiserate over the not knowing, the always wondering if it's you or them. She's had a terrible few days, and this weekend is going to be awful. Working, I ask? No, a funeral, she replys.

In the elevator another dancer is crying because she lost her make-up bag, which will cost over a hundred dollars to replace (serious make-up is a job requirement). She also recently lost her iPod and a ring her grandfather gave her. I have similar problems with losing things, but not recently, and my iPod (which I think was stolen at an audition) was replaced at Christmas with a snazzy iPhone. At least we get to go home now, I suggest. And my roommate's crap is probably all over, she notes, still crying. I say goodbye to her and the girl preparing for a funeral and decide things could be worse than two rejections in one day.

So not a bad day.

Errors on the Equity Website

8:30 am on Valentines Day, and I just want to stay in bed and snuggle with my honey…but I am a dedicated dancer so I get out of bed and head down to Chelsea Studios for an audition for the workshop for Leap of Faith, based, like everything coming to Broadway, on the movie.

I double checked the Equity website last night to make sure I had the time and place right. But after I trek through the cold morning to 26^th street, I am greeted by the following flier on the door:

Due to an error on the Equity website, Leap of Faith will beheld tomorrow 10 am men, 2 pm women

Sort of annoying (besides the unnecessary abandoning of my cozy bed, I teaching Friday afternoon) but even more so because this is the second error this week.

On Tuesday I went to an EPA listed at 'Shetler Studios, 939 8th Avenue (Between 55th and 56th).' I show up there a little before 9 am, and find a man in an official looking office for 8^th Avenue Studios, who tells me the audition is on 54^th street.

So I walk down to 54^th (it's another cold New York morning) and discover that although this is the new location of Shetler Studios, and hence the audition, the monitor is signing people in at 939 8^th Avenue, on the second floor (I was on the third before). About ten young women say they have been there since 6 am and were told to stay there. I wish them luck and head back to where I came.

There is a line snaking around the 2^nd floor. I get one of the last available time slots for 4:50, which doesn't work for me. In protest at the confusion and incompetence, I don't show up. Maybe one of the actresses who showed up at 6 got my spot.

Equity dues hard at work.

Equity Calls and Logistics

Equity, the stage actors union, runs the open auditions for most professional theaters. Productions also hold invited calls, where actors get actual appointments, usually through agents. Most casting is done from the invited calls. But Equity requires union productions to audition Equity members whether they want to or not. Long running Broadway shows have to hold open calls even if no roles are actually available.

Do people get jobs out of open calls? It's rumored to happen on occasion. And since I don't have an agent and rarely get invited to the closed calls, I go to lots of open calls I can. Plus you get to see your friends and catch up on industry gossip. There are two types I attend, Equity Principal Auditions (EPAs) and Equity Chorus Calls for dancers (ECC).

Today a Shakespeare Festival was holding an EPA. The audition started at 10 am, but you can sign up for a time slot starting at 9 am, and I've heard stories of hopefuls lining up outside in the snow at six in the morning.

This audition was at Nola, the crappiest Equity-audition studio in Manhattan. Over half the times I've been there the toilets were not functioning, and the owner likes to yell at auditionees. A theater that holds its auditions there is likely to be cheap and not pay actors well. Plus there was a big emphasis on "any ethnicity" in the breakdown, which usually means any ethnicity but Caucasian. But I have some new Shakespeare monologues I am excited to try, and a free morning, so I decided to go. But I wasn't motivated enough to get out of bed when my alarm went off at 8:15. I snoozed until 9:15. I got to Nola a few minutes before 10, and all the audition slots (about 130) were full, so I signed up as number 23 on the alternate list, which means I can sit in the overcrowded audition room all day, and if 23 actors with slots don't show up, I'm in. So I'll go back after a dance call this afternoon and bring a book and maybe I'll get to audition before it ends at 5:30.

I walked over to the Equity office in Times Square to sign up for upcoming dance calls. The lists are posted a week before the audition. I signed up as number 247 and 243 for two auditions for regional theaters tomorrow. Not every dancer on the list shows up at the audition, but then some show up who never made it to the Equity building that week, plus there are usually over 100 non-union dancers trying to be seen also. That's a lot of competition, and we’re not even counting the invited calls for the people they're really interested in.

I know I should get out of bed early and sign up right at 9 for EPAs, and head down to the Equity office promptly one week before a dance call to sign up, but it's hard to motivate, since sometimes you can show up late or not sign up and still get a slot just fine, so why make the extra effort? I wish we could sign up online or via phone or something to reduce this unnecessary schlepping around the city.

Sometimes I feel like someone sick of dating too cynical to give a relationship a chance. But with dating, at least the numbers are somewhat plausible. Auditioning is like being on The Bachelor, but with 246 other contestants, plus the guy's probably already married.

A typical holding room at a dance call (the first thirty girls are already in the audition room, and there are oodles out in the hallway):

What not to say on a first date…

Dancers don't get paid much, but we do have good stories, some of them unrelated to auditioning/performing. For example, my friend R went on a date last weekend with a guy P who asked for her phone number on the street a few weeks ago. They met at Angelika Kitchen, as R is vegetarian. She didn't recognize him at first, he wasn't as cute as she remembered. An excerpt from their conversation as they waited for their table in that awkward small doorway, they had the following conversation:

R: So you're from Colorado? Do your parents still live there?
D: (In a flat monotone) Yes, but they did a really bad job raising me.
R: Yeah, you know, parents do the best they can.
D: No, but they really messed up.
R: What do you mean?
D: I'm really weird.
R: Ha ha, we're all a little weird.

She waited for him to break out of his deadpan and say just kidding, but he was serious. She knew she shouldn't ask, but she was too curious.

R: So how are you weird exactly?
D: I have a lot of health problems.
R: Oh, are you okay right now?
D: Not really. I have this problem where all the time I cough up chunks of congenital mucus

And it was downhill from there. At the end of the date, he confided that he was on a lot of (prescription) drugs, then was quite surprised when R rejected his invitation to come over.