I want to tell you guys about my callback this morning, if nothing but to illustrate the emotional highs and lows of auditioning in this industry. I put myself through the emotional ringer this weekend and it ended in a good lesson that’s worth sharing.
I had an initial dance call and vocal call this past Thursday for full seasons of several different regional theatres across the country. The initial dance call was an adorable little combination to a song from Hairspray. It was more focused on character and less on technique, which I was grateful for, and fit right in my wheelhouse. I felt great about the preparation I had put into the day, as well as what I was wearing, how I looked, etc. I’ve also been working quite a bit on my memory, which I seem to be slowly improving upon. I felt like I performed the combination better than I expected and save for one brain fart, executed them with the character in my bones instead of letting my memory issues read on my face.
I then sang some new cuts that option up at the end that I’ve been working on with my vocal coach. One of my goals this year is to stop playing it so safe and start taking more risks in the room. I was very proud of how I sang, and long story short, felt really great after leaving the call. They told us that we would be receiving an email within 24 hours if we received a callback, and if we didn’t hear, that was all they needed to see. The initial callback would be a tap callback on Monday (today) due to the high number of tap shows on everyones’ roster this season.
There were approximately 225 people auditioning with me that day and only about 60 or so dancers, so I had all of my fingers and toes crossed for that callback. Well, 24 hours came and went with no word, so I decided to bite the bullet and log onto Callback Corner to see if anyone else had heard. To my dismay, several people had received their tap callback emails the night before and my heart started to slowly sink. This was the end of the day on Friday and I was kind of devastated not to receive that email. I cried and started to eat every cookie, cake, and bag of bbq chips I could find. I told myself that I was allowed one day to mourn, but then I had to get back on the horse and keep working my ass off. Friday night was sad for me. I kept telling myself that I had to pull it together for my vocal coaching the next morning and try as hard as I can not to let this affect me. Then…all of a sudden…it’s 11:00 PM on Friday night and in comes that beautiful email! Lord, I felt silly for letting myself be so affected by this situation. I started doing my internal happy dance and thinking about what I can do to help prepare for Monday.
Fast forward to the tap callback on Monday morning – I had found out that there were actually 4 days of these auditions, so the 225 people on my day were multiplied by 4 and I was actually competing with over 1,000 people! Suddenly, that callback I received became even more revered and special for me. There were maybe between 70 and 100 people there and they decided they needed to teach the combination in one group to save time, which turned out to be A MADHOUSE. We were all packed into this tiny little room to the point where we could barely even MOVE let alone dance. No one could see or hear anything and they had to be really strict about not tapping while the choreographer was teaching. The combination was hard. The choreographer explained that many of the theatres were trying to cast 42nd Street and Mary Poppins and Newsies, etc., so it was important to get right to the chase with this call.
The choreographer taught the first half of the combination and it became so clear to me just how important it was for me to be able to see and hear him while he was teaching. There was a moment when he had us switch lines and I literally couldn’t see ANYTHING. I said to myself, “Michelle, if you want to succeed at this, you have to get to the front where you can see”. The 8-count I missed while I was standing in the back corner was hard for me to pick up after I had missed it being taught and that little section plagued me throughout the dance call.
He then split us into groups of 10 and did a pre-lim cut before we got in front of the CDs. I quickly practiced the combination as many times as I could and tried to get it in my muscles without thinking about it. I went with the last group and didn’t make the cut, which I wasn’t all that surprised about. I was bummed because I thought I had performed it well, but not all that surprised, considering my competition. More than anything, I was sad that this meant the end of this particular audition road for me. He cut about half of us and sent us back to the holding room to wait. They instructed us that we would still get to tap in front of the CDs, they would just have us do technique instead of the combination, so time steps, wings, pullbacks, etc. All of us in the holding room then just waited while he continued teaching the combination to the rest of the dancers that he had kept. The tapping just kept going and going and going and going…it was the longest (and hardest combination of all time). They set up the tables for the CDs and started slowly performing the combination in small groups. Each group that came back to the holding room looked completely defeated, mentally, and kept talking about how hard the combination was.
Then, all of a sudden, one of the monitors rushed in and called someone’s name and asked if he was in the room. He stated that he was and jumped up. Apparently, one of the casting directors had asked to see him do the combination (because they remembered him from the initial audition), but he had gotten cut from the pre-lim tap round, so he hadn’t learned the whole thing. The monitors declared that they were going to be clearing a 4×4 square in the middle of the holding room so that one of the other auditioners could teach this poor boy the combination as fast as he could. I just sat there watching this guy try and teach the combination, thinking about how lucky he was to get this second chance, but how unlucky he was to not have the opportunity to learn it at a slower pace from the choreographer.
Then, I couldn’t fucking believe this, but 5 minutes later the EXACT same thing happened to me. The monitor came in and called my name and asked if I was in the room. I jumped out of my chair faster than you can imagine, with a look of terror/excitement/anticipation on my face. He said that the CDs wanted to see me with the first group as well and to try and learn this combination with the other boy as fast as I could. I walked over there and just stared at this guys’ feet for a few seconds, trying to fathom how I was going to learn an entire tap combination and perfect it in a matter of minutes. I attempted to learn a few 8-counts and then quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be possible. I literally had to throw in the towel and admit to myself that there was no way this was going to happen. I stopped tapping and the guy teaching the combination asked me if I needed him to go slower, and I freely admitted that there was no way I was going to be able to perform this successfully and that I didn’t want to go in there with an unfair disadvantage and set myself up for failure in front of casting.
I went in there and watched the other guy perform the combination better than I ever could have and then eventually crash and burn, despite his talent. I went ahead and requested to be seen with the second group (that got cut) because I just didn’t have enough time to learn the combo and they readily agreed. I was first in the second group and they had us do the first half of the combination, up until we had stopped for the pre-lim cut. I was honestly SO relieved. I knew that this combination was too advanced for me, whether I had the full-term to learn it or not. I actually helped myself by understanding very quickly how to put my best foot forward and not allow myself to show unnecessary vulnerabilities in front of casting.
But, needless to say, I almost had a heart attack and went through the gamut of emotions in a very short period of time. I had gone back into the holding room accepting that I had been cut and that casting decisions were finalized, when in all reality, the casting directors asked to see me personally, which made me feel incredibly optimistic. Who knows what will happen from here, but you just never know when and where you’re going to hear back from casting or whether or not you succeeded in making an impression. It made me want to keep working hard no matter what. To never stop trying to perfect the combination as long as you’re in that building, and afterwards, to keep improving your craft outside of the audition room. It could be minutes, days, or months, but you just never know when you may get that call from casting saying that they’d like to see you again.
