Friday, March 25, 2016

The best adventure is those that are unknown

 The great adventure finds you when you least expect it. And when they knock on your door, you have to have the courage to turn the knob. Either you take it, see where it takes you, or you stay on the same ground.

    My very first official audition in New York City was a moment i have been forever waiting for for months. The whole system is a bit complicated, most of them are not cattle calls and most of them are only asking for equity members, (let's not talk about the fact that i have to get up at 5am to take the morning train to the city). so basically if you don't have the card, you cannot go. So for weeks after weeks i finally could search one that i can go which was the Mary Poppins ensemble call. Interestingly, the call was scheduled on the day after a concert i had to attend. Which means, after a night of screaming, being in the snow (with minimal clothing as i wanted to look nice in the concert, um..) and not resting. There was no way i was going to skip the concert for this call so having my fingers crossed, i screamed in a special way in the concert and braced myself in the cold, somehow being too happy and excited and not sleeping until 2am and waking up at 7 (thanks god I was staying in the hotel about only 7 streets away) and somehow, spoiler alert, i managed to do my best.


 The best wasn't at Mary Poppins though. After having bananas, bread and cereal for breakfast, i grabbed myself a blueberry muffin from the breakfast counter and headed out for the day. When it was about 9 or 10, i waited in the area where the call was held. To my surprise, there wasn't many people but just around 3 girls in their dresses and a few guys who were stretching their legs in the open space, with their dance leg muscles sticking out and toes in their pointe.. As i was sitting on the bench and casually changing my winter boots to my heels, (i swear the girls were looking at my action..) i saw an old man went towards the room and before he went inside, he spent some time with us girls. We learned about he was the producer for the show, which i learned he was only a guy providing money for all of these and had almost nothing to do with anything else and most important of all, we were told they were not seeing anyone who were not on their list until those people who were are done, and it was still their decision whether more wanted to be seen so we were told to come around at 12 to only see their decisions.

   I turned to look at the other girls, 2 of them seemed to be friends and 1 were not, four of us haven't really talked with each other until then. So when the producer was away, we had come to an agreement that it was either you can stay here or just go and how it all explained why there were only so few of us here. What was in my mind was that there was no freaking way i was going as i have waited for this since so long ago. So with my bottom stuck on the bench as hard as glue, the two girls started to get change back to their winter clothes and got up. "I like your heels,", said one of the girls. To be honest with you, i thought they hated my heels and the way i changed it. So that compliment was really out of no where and made me surprisingly happy. "Thanks", i replied. "They are so pretty, i can never wear white heels, They are so easy to get dirty." Said the girl. And there, we started a short conversation about my heels.

    Just when they were about to leave, the two girls asked me and the other girl if we wanted to go to another audition.  We were a bit skeptical about that decision but since there was nothing we could do in that few hours, after several minutes of consideration, i decided to go with them, and the other girl did too. The funny thing was that i thought the other call was only downstairs so i didn't change my shoes back. But the truth was, it was 20 streets away. So not having to wear my boots back, i stumbled my way in the open air and took the subway with the 3 girls. I hate that i am not writing their names because i totally forgot them all. How i wish i remember them...


  Having absolutely no idea what the call/show is, where is it, what do we have to do, we just followed the girl who happened to receive the information on her phone and she also had no idea what that was about. So there we were, a fearless audition squad. During the whole 'trip' to another location, we managed to learn more about each other and one just randomly sing in the subway made me feel like i was in the sound of music or something. And i liked it.

   The train ride was quick, but long enough to form a new bond among us four. We then arrived to that small rehearsal place and a relatively rustic and plain one compared to the one we were in after climbing 2 floors of wooden stairs, squeaking as we went along. At last, we found the location, a rehearsal studio with pastel green and red tone style and some simple wooden setting. We settled in a small room with about 20 other girls in their dresses and were ready for any instructions.



(sobs . memories)

   I'm not going to talk about what details happened next but i really like to mention how our little squad stuck together in the corridor while waiting to be seen, (and that time a guys randomly did a monkey climb with his legs on both walls while waiting in line) and how during the day, we bravely and stupidly went to another audition with absolutely no information nor preparation together and somehow learning more about each other's story. And how i managed to do my first NYC audition. I did not care about what the show was, i sounded cool in the room, i have my people with me and i had the best adventure ever. Although the time was short for us (OH, and the one i got close with looked like a mix of the Old Miley Cyrus and Angie Miller, and i told her about that too), they were the people who made my adventure and made me feel like i was not doing it alone. That really made my first time a special one.

  Do you have any impromptu adventures that you dont know where it would bring you?
xx