Monday, January 25, 2016

No Meat, No Roll

Well I missed the audition for Sweeny Todd.  This was entirely my decision, and I will explain in some depth. 

I've worked for the director (Laureen) twice before, once for 1776 and once for Best Little Whorehouse.  She always casts well, but she never takes any chances, so I knew that if I wanted a meaty role (and boy did I ever want a meaty role, if you'll pardon the very sick pun), I had to impress the hell out of her during the audition.  So I chose a difficult audition piece - specifically, "Hello, Little Girl" from "Into The Woods.  I figured, if you want to land a leading role in a difficult Sondheim show, then you should audition with a difficult Sondheim song.  I listened to the song several times a day, purchased the sheet music in a key that I could handle, and carefully transposed the music into Musescore so that I could practice it in that key.

But never fully recovered from the flu.  The cough lingered, and I didn't get to the point where I could get through even an easy song without encountering phlegm. 

Musical theatre requires a huge time commitment, even if you're chorus, and I didn't want to make that commitment for a chorus part.  Call me selfish.  So I sat this one out. 

Unfortunately, this may be the last chance I get for the stage, at least in the foreseeable future.  I've not complained to you about my job before, because really, if you've got a job you're among the lucky ones, but I cannot stand my shift manager so I've asked to be moved to another shift.  Second shift will mean that I can't make the time commitment to anything beyond weekly karaoke and singing along with the radio. 

But that can't take that away!