Old Man River

Last night was the call back.
Grab the chips and dip – here’s the story.

I arrived at 8pm – filled out my form (I needed to fill one out, since I wasn’t at the initial audition) and went upstairs to wait with what turned out to be a large majority of the Boston theatre community. :-) There were a TON of people up there chatting and carrying on. I saw a bunch of people I knew, so I sat with them and got the scoop on what was going on. A lot of the people there were called in earlier in the day for specific roles, but were asked to stay and learn the dance combination – which explained the large amount of people sitting around.
After waiting for a bit, they informed us that because of the large number of people they would be teaching the dance in two separate groups. I wasn’t picked for the first group, so I continued to wait. Once the first group was finished, they asked the rest of us to go into the rehearsal hall.
Upon entering the hall, I quickly realized that I was by FAR the oldest man in the room. When I say the oldest, I’m not talking one or two years – I was literally at LEAST 12-13 years older than the oldest ‘boy’ there. Interesting. With the exception of one other boy, I’m 99% sure that they were all students (or recent graduates) of the Boston Conservatory. That means that they pretty much spend all day, every day singing, dancing, and acting. Unlike me, who spends all day, every day behind a desk.
Again, totally fine.
As I mentioned before, not everyone in the room at that time was called back for the ensemble. So there were some older women in the room, but as far as the men were concerned, I definitely was, as I referred to myself at one point, the ‘old man in the back’. The combination we were learning began with fairly standard musical theatre movement and the second half went into a tap section. Totally fine.
Of course, that was before I realized we’d have to learn it super quick. Not to mention the fact that it was all about doing it one way and then reversing everything you just learned. For example, you learn a section that starts out on your right foot….then you repeat the same exact section beginning on your left foot. Total nightmare for me.
I know my limits and I’m well aware of the fact that I’m H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E at reversing steps so I seriously just had to suck it up and throw on the thinking cap.
Once it was all learned (or as learned as it was going to be) we were brought out in groups of 6 to do it alone (without the choreographer doing it in front of us).
When my turn was up, I didn’t even come remotely close to doing it correctly. I’m fine with it though because I did my best to remember it all, I didn’t flip out, and I didn’t stop moving the entire time…and I smiled. I can honestly say that in the entire room, there were only three people (3 of the BoCo boys) who actually managed to get through the entire thing and have it look like a dance combination, so that made me feel a tad better…and not so alone. I’m fairly certain that all the people in charge were taking into consideration the circumstances we were under, so I’m sure they were looking for people who will be able to learn a dance under normal rehearsal circumstances. As opposed to a 20 minute ‘lesson’ with 25 people crammed into a room trying to learn it at the same time.
Once the dancing portion was done, they told all the people who were staying to sing for the ensemble roles to take 5 minutes and then we’d be brought back into the room to sing. We took 5, and then went back into the room. This time I had a better understanding as to who I was ‘up against’. There were 7 of us that were singing the bass/baritone part and once again, I was Grandpa McElderly within my group. No prob. We had two short pieces to sing so we sang through each one as a big group, then we were brought out to sing them in smaller groups of 8 (with 2 people on each part) then we were brought out to sing only the first piece and focus on the ‘acting’ of the song in quartets. It went well….everyone in the room could sing, so it wasn’t a matter of getting the right notes, it was a matter of who did what as far as delivery of the song was concerned. I had fun with it and felt like I did a decent job.

Once we were all heard, the director told us that we would be notified either way by Friday.

My gut feeling is that I won’t be cast. I’m not being all ‘Poor me’ – but I just have a feeling about it. They’re only looking for 2 men per part and judging by the rest of the men in the room – I'm guessing that they’re more interesting in casting younger men for the ensemble roles. What ever happens, I’ll be completely fine. I think I did a decent job, and I’m not at all upset about my ‘performance’.

So now I just sit back and wait…..I hate waiting.

Here are some pictures I promised…..

This is Jim and I at the Halloween party last weekend. I'm not wearing a costume, so stop trying to figure out who I am. However, this is a brand new outfit from the shopping spree at the outlets I mentioned on here some time ago. :-)

Scooter is going to be a skeleton for Halloween!!!!