c9 | Auditions, 2005 edition

Tonight, Kitchener-Waterloo Little Theatre held auditions for their January One-Act Play Weekend. The alert among you will recognize this as the same thing I auditioned for last year. This year, it's three one-act plays directed by their authors. I had tried googling them but came up empty, which was weird.

First, I read a monologue from Between the Cracks, playing a young and just barely still idealistic parole officer. Then they had me play a far-too-enthusiastic train company employee, creeping out a passenger. Then they asked me to sing. Ack!

One of the three one-acts is a musical. On the audition form, they asked if I was comfortable singing alone (No), or singing in a group (No. Pause. Thing about it. Decide to stretch my limits. Erase. Yes)

I love the idea of being able to sing. I am incredibly jealous of

jdhorner's voice,

thespos' singing experience, ... I am devoid of musical skills, at least developed ones. I even put a guitar on our wedding registry, and have fooled around with it maybe twice. Kinda depressing.

I have precisely one singing on stage experience in my life. In high school, a group of friends used to attend a Whose Line Is It Anyway? rip-off show at a bar in Ottawa. I got chatty with the producer/host, and the next week he asked me if I wanted to be in the show!!!!11eleven! I took about three seconds before saying yes. It was great fun, and I love improv. But partway through the show a familiar tune started playing on his electric piano, and I said "Oh shit." I had forgotten that most shows included the Hoe-Down! For the unfamiliar, this is a game where each of the four contestants has to sing, alone, a completely made-up song about a topic they've been given only seconds beforehand. Mine was about cows I seem to recall. I survived, but I have no recollection of anything I sang. My friends might. I hope not.

So during the audition, one of the directors says "You say you're comfortable singing in a group."

Well, I say, I'm willing to give it a shot.

"Are you comfortable singing now?"

In front of six strangers? Sure! Umm...

"You can sing any old thing, doesn't matter, just a couple lines. Even Happy Birthday." No royalty payments to Irving Berlin's estate, I note.

Umm... I couldn't think of anything I was willing to take a risk on except Happy Birthday.

So that's what I did. They stopped me after only two lines, hopefully because they had heard enough, and not because of any sort of pain.

All I can think of is Oh god, what if they give me a singing part?!?

leapfish still knows and occasionally sings his lines from Oklahoma, but I've got nothin'. We shall see.