So, let’s talk a little bit about being a Non-Equity member in Manhattan during audition season.
The absolute hardest part of your job is waking up. It’s the worst! You probably just crawled into bed at midnight (or later!) coming home from work, and here you are again. You alarm is going off and it is only 4am.
I’m not joking. My alarm goes off on audition days at 4am.
Now, you might say, this is the girl I hate. This girl is “that girl” that wakes up to go to an audition at 4am! To that I say, which came first? The chicken or the egg? Someone else is always there before me, so am I truly crazy? Yes, but that is not the point. I didn’t start the Non-Equity madness, so I can only say that I am doing what I can to do my job: audition.
If you haven’t ever done so, you should read Audition Update. It’s the great, albeit insane, account of what auditions are happening where, what time the list is up, how many are on the list, what they need, if the gig is good or not, and everything else you could want to know... Run completely by actors.
So when my alarm goes off at 4am, I open my iPhone to Safari, check Audition Update, pull on sweatpants, put on a coat, and walk to the train. I wait for the train, get off in midtown, and sign my name on every “Unofficial List” for the auditions I want to attend that day. (An Unofficial List is a list started by actors who want to start an order earlier than the time the audition starts. Most casting directors and theaters will take this list, but they aren’t required to!)
After I sign my name, I hop back on the train to my apartment, sleep for a little longer, and get ready for my auditions. I walk my subway stop, get my conveniently placed Starbucks, and get back on the train headed to midtown.
Usually when you arrive at an audition during audition season, it’s a madhouse. People are warming up, both vocally and physically in the hall. Some are furiously trying to cut and staple headshots and resumes, while some are changing into their audition clothes. (Audition clothes: A brightly colored, probably blue, dress and nude heels of varying heights.)
My favorite part of auditioning is running into my friends that I haven’t seen in a while. So yes, I am “that girl” too. The one who runs and jumps on her gay best friend that she hasn’t seen in a year, or like, since last weekend.
This morning I had the pleasure of auditioning for the Beauty and the Beast National Tour. The tour is Non-Equity, so as long as you get up early enough, you are pretty much guaranteed to be seen. However, this is a popular audition to attend, so when 8am rolled around, there were over 500 girls signed up for this audition. Being the awesome Point Park University graduates that we are, my friends and and I signed up really early, so we were in the first twenty people to be seen.
We got ourselves lined up against the wall and found out we were only allotted 8 bars of music to sing. (In laymen’s terms, about a sentence.) In and out we went! It was fantastic and all five of us were done singing by 10:30am. We collectively decided that it was time to leave and reward ourselves... Bagels for breakfast! (But not before we snapped a picture.)
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| Left to Right: Audra, Myself, Arielle, Nicole, and Kevin, being Kevin. |
What could have been an absolutely insane morning was calm and wonderful because of the people in this picture. I love having a group of friends who all have the same amount of passion, dedication, and work ethic, but are all different types. We can all be so supportive of each other at every audition, and it truly makes all the difference.
