The Audition Hangover

The Rain on Daisy falls mainly in the hazy days of winter? Huh? Sorry, I'm so confused this morning. I'm suffering from a monumental audition hangover -- times two! This past weekend we auditioned actors for both Singin' in the Rain and Driving Miss Daisy at the same time. We had originally planned to hold separate auditions, but when Buzz Herman, our musical director, came up with an unexpected scheduling conflict on our Rain audition weekend, it became necessary to push the Rain auditions up and marry them with Daisy. (Why do I suddenly have bizarre visions of Gene Kelly doing a tango with Jessica Tandy?)

Audition weekend is always long and hard for the production team. Actors, singers and dancers march in one by one to strut their stuff. Some friends, some strangers, some who will be come new friends. But they keep coming. And we have to keep them all straight. After a while, your head starts to hurt, you get behind in your notes, and you begin to forget your own name. Luckily, we video tape every one's audition for later evaluation.

This weekend we sat through more than 15 hours of auditions in the communications building followed by a 6-hour casting meeting at my house. Trust me when I say it is both fun and brutal in equal measure. It also got pretty hairy on Saturday and Sunday. We were light in our audition sign ups going into the weekend. This was a result of a scheduling goof which resulted in Playful Theatre's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie (a tap dance heavy show) going up right around the same time as Rain, so we were competing for some of the same actors/skill sets. Playful held their Millie auditions the week before we did, so it cut into our pool of actors. On top of this, Pennington Player's My Favorite Year, which goes up around same time as Rain held early auditions to get a jump on the talent. With even more actors approaching burn out from doing the recent production of Beauty and the Beast, it was tough to get the best talent to sign up. That said, we got lucky. Much of the top talent in the area did show up -- eventually. Here's what happened.

As Saturday approached, actors started rescheduling their auditions. It's a phenomenon we call "jockeying". Our online scheduling system allows actors to pick and choose their own audition day and time on the schedule. As the audition day approaches, actors start to move their appointments to later in the day, or the next day. Some actors will reschedule their appointments several times. Sometimes it's just personal conflicts, but more often than not, it's actors trying to buy more time to work on their audition. So when the jockeying began, we found ourselves sitting around on Saturday for long stretches at a time waiting for the next appointment while the Sunday schedule suddenly got completely booked. This extreme had never happened before, but we were glad to have a full schedule on Sunday and braced for a long day.

And then it happened. On Sunday, we saw more people walk in then ever before. In fact, much of the Kelsey star power, people who often play lead roles started walking in off the street late in the day on Sunday. Actors started pulling other actors in to audition. Leading men and leading ladies walked in unexpectedly saying: "I've had a change of heart. Don't know if I can cut the dancing, but I'd like to be a part of the show if you can use me." Folks from other shows rehearsing down the hall wandered in and said: "I'm on a break, can I audition?" With only about an hour left in our day, the hallway was packed, two audition rooms were humming with actors doing their thing. It was standing room only, and then the bomb dropped. The band from Pierrot's production of Follies walked in with all their instruments. They were scheduled to rehearse in the same room we were using for the acting auditions (the band room). But they were almost an hour early. When I took a peek out of the audition room it looked like Alycia (who was managing the traffic flow) had them all crammed in with a shoe horn. Finally, at 6pm we moved to another room and gave up the band room to Follies, who's rehearsal started at 6:30pm. Rain and Daisy auditions continued for another hour before we saw the last actor, packed up and called it a day.

Like I said. Fun, but brutal.

More on the auditions and the casting meeting later.

I Saw Bat Boy Last Night

I saw Stars in the Park's Bat Boy last night. Wow! I have to admit, rock opera-style shows are not my cup of tea, but I couldn't help walking out being very impressed with this production. Diane, Gerry, and Lorraine Wargo have to be proud. Not only because they've produced a successful show, but because they've helped young Chelsea Wargo develop into an accomplished musical theatre talent. She did a wonderful job in the role of Shelley.

I last saw Chelsea play Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz two summers ago. Back then she was a young actress fighting off mosquitoes and a bad sound system at the park while struggling to command the stage in a production that I personally thought might have been a little too big for her to handle (at least on that night) . But last evening I saw an entirely different person. Her voice appears to have developed by leaps and bounds in the last two years. She's seems to have shaken the adolescent awkwardness we all deal with in youth and now has a more mature stage presence. She was a delight to watch. If she can tap dance as well as she can sing and act, I can only hope that she comes out to audition for our production of Singin' in the Rain.

The evening made me regret all the more my not seeing her perform the role of Eponine in Notre Dame High School's production of Le Miserables. I had every intention of going, but life just got in the way. Later, I heard good things about her performance. And I now have a better sense for what I missed. As a parent, I think I can speak for all Mom's and Dad's when I say that we don't want our kids to grow up. But sometimes it's a treat to watch when they do.

Another treat last night was watching Nicole Spadafino in the role of Meredith. It's always a pleasure to watch and work with Nicole, but this appeared to be a different kind of role for her. At least, different from what I've see her do. More serious, more emotionally real. I thought she brought a lot of gravitas to the role. And listening to her and Chelsea sing together was one of the highlights of the show for me. This may be overstating it, but I think Nicole made the whole production work. Meredith is a cornerstone role in the show. The stronger your Meredith, in my opinion, the stronger your show. Kudos to Diane for casting Nicole. I don't think she could have chosen a better rock on which to build her show.