Manhattan Mini Shrek

I am on the A train right now staring at the wardrobe boxes that I just bought from Manhattan Mini Storage as they lean against the pole in front of me...them falling on me and the person next to me is always a pending situation, so I keep jumping up every time the train is a little unstable in order to break their fall, which is about two times in between each stop...lovely way to end the day! I am sure that everyone else is thinking that, too; it being rush hour and there being a big, three foot rectangular piece of cardboard intruding in on the A train full of packed New York sardines.

Ahhh! Sorry, I just had to momentarily scream because this program (text edit) just quit on me. Luckily, since my life seems to want to follow Murphy's Law at least a few times a day, I have been beating ill fate to its destination (me), and preventing many disasters...such as programs quitting on me after writing for two hours without saving the document. I can't seem to save on this program right now because, every time that I do, I get the spinning beach ball of death, so I have been intermittently taking screen shots of each paragraph. It is so weird to me when my mac starts acting funny because it never used to give me any problems. I really think it has to do with the fact that I only have about a gig free on my hard drive right now, and I also have a lot of things on my desktop, and that, I have been told, slows things down as well. I think I have some work to do... aka yucky stuff like transferring files onto my hard drive and repairing permissions...all the things that my boy loves to do..as in it is one of his favorite things to do. Unfortunately, he is on tour, and I am about to go on tour, so I have to take care of my own computer maintenance for now...boohoo!

So, today was a very interesting day for me concerning auditions. Some of you may think, why go on auditions when you have a tour coming up soon? The answer to that is, I am only going to be employed for three months, and then, I will need a job again. Also, I always want to show my face at Broadway calls. The first dance call for Shrek was yesterday at the Ailey studios. The choreography was very fast and Donald O'Conner-esque. I LOVED it. I got called back yesterday, but they said that the next part of the call back would be at Chelsea Studios at 12PM the following day. I thought, "Great. This will give me time to get some rest and go over the combination before tomorrow." Then, I get a voicemail from Agent when I leave the Shrek audition in which he says, "Adrienne, you are going to gag when you hear about the audition that I have got for you." Now, this is a person who has sent me on JLO auditions and Tyra Banks auditions, and he has never thought twice about it (or at least he has always seemed calm , cool and collected).

So, I am thinking, "What in the world could this be?" I call him immediately..well, wait that is a lie...I call my boy first and tell him what Agent said on the voicemail...just basking in the mystery and suspense of it all. I always do this, and I am sure it drives him nuts. I am always calling him with all this excitement about the possibilities of what "could be" based on the clues that were given. I did this before I called Agent back for White Christmas...That time, I called my boy and said, "I got a call from Agent saying that I have to call him right away even if it after hours." He was like, "OK, so, are you going to call him back and find out what it is." :o)

So, I call Agent and he says, drumroll............."You have an appointment with the musical director of Curtains. He called you in in order to hear you sing a couple of belty, chesty songs for a role in the ensemble who has to understudy one of the leads." I am very excited at this point, but I am also seeing clearly the conflict that I am going to have to try to resolve with having a dance call back ten blocks south of where the appointment is just about an hour earlier. I tell Agent this, and he says that he can try to call them and tell them that I have another obligation (obviously telling them that it is another broadway show not some waiting tables job).

So, I don't hear from Agent until I call him the next day when I am on my way to the Shrek audition in Chelsea. He tells me to just try to make it as close to my appointment time as possible. hmmm..This is going to be a difficult task, but I take a deep breath, and walk into the first audition. We review the combination from the day prior and learn a new one called Bones in which the dancers are funky skeletons...yeah, I know, just don't even try to draw a mental picture of this one until you go and see the show next year. By the time we start doing it in small groups for the audition portion, I ask the assistant if I can be in the first group so that I can run ten blocks north to my next audition. At auditions like this, (I will explain this for those of you who aren't in the know) a cut is made after everyone dances...of course, I am not able to wait for this part because of my whirlwind exit to the next call, so I don't even know if I SHOULD be rushing back after the Curtains audition in midtown.

Deep breath. The appointment for Curtains goes really well. I sing two songs for them, and they both sound pretty good to me. The acoustics in the room aren't that great, but it is fun overall.....nothing mind blowing, but there is about to be some mind blowing at the next location...at Shrek back in Chelsea. So, I power walk with my wheelie suitcase, my big back pack, and my little green dress back to Shrek..crossing my fingers hoping that I did indeed make the dance cut and I am called back to sing.

I walk in, and I get a thumbs up from someone I know. Sweet...I didn't rush for nothing. I run to the bathroom to change from my green singing dress to my two-toned purple dancing unitard. As soon as I walk out of the bathroom, someone asks me if my name is Adrienne. I say yes. She says, "You are next to sing." Well well well...what do you know? I quickly review the Janis Joplin song that I recently printed out, and I walk into the room. There are eight people in the room. It is almost overwhelming, but overwhelming in a good way. Everyone is smiling!! I love the creative team of Shrek! I sing my song, and I have to admit, I rocked it. It is not very often that I walk out of a singing audition and can truly say that I nailed a song, but this time I did. When I truly connect with a song, I sing it so much better than when I am trying to act something that doesn't mean a lot to me..I mean, I know that I am an "actor", and I should be able to pretend anything and make it real to me, which I do with almost any good script, but when it comes to music, there are certain rock and blues songs that just throw a sparkly sparkle on my voice that I sometimes feel like I am missing when I sing certain music theatre songs.

Anyways, it was a great audition...out of all of the Broadway auditions that I have ever done, this one clicked in a way that made me think that any mess-ups or "not spot ons" I have had at auditions in the past were all unfortunate preparations that cleared my plate clean of mistakes for the good fortune of this one audition. I definitely don't want to get my hopes up because it is a Broadway show after all, and I am sure that there aren't very many slots to fill, but I am very happy about it. I really want to be the ensemble track member who plays the gingerbread person. Although, maybe that would flood my extreme love of ginger and then I wouldn't love it any more. That would be sad.

Oh, the reason that I have two large boxes with me on the train is because I did a mystery shop at Manhattan Mini Storage, and I am in the middle of packing up my apartment for the subletters who are coming this weekend.

Also, one of the highlights of my day was selling an old jump rope of mine for $5. I posted some ads on cragislist and ebay that in which I am selling some random things that I found while cleaning my apartment. I love being an entreprenuer when I can. I have some other things for sale on ebay..you can search for alienbeamus on ebay if you want to check out my items for sale! -You know, very useful things such as Speedo Goggles, Padlocks, and sheet music from Wicked, Dixie Chicks, Footloose and The Last Five Years!

Hope you are as happy as pigs in mud or, in this case, sardines in a can...without sharp moving boxes jabbing at your sides!