So tonight's the big night.....

The start of the audition process. Tonight, tomorrow night, and all day Saturday, I'll be listening to hoardes of wannabe Avril Lavignes and Josh Maddens warble (I would have used musical theatre celebrity references, but really, who the hell knows any of those except me?).

I'm not a spiritual person, but lately I've been practising meditation. Focussing on something, and clearing my mind of everything else. I find this really helps in the audition room when the urge to laugh is so overwhelming, and I know that one small chortle could ruin a kid's self esteem for the rest of his teenage years.





OK, start your audition, I'm ready.




I'm thinking next year I'm putting two-way mirror into the musical budget, so I can sit behind it and watch auditions and laugh till my face hurts.

Anyway, I had to practice my meditation skills yesterday when I was helping a kid with her audition song for tonight. The lead female character sings quite high, but every kid wants to be her, because she's the lead, regardless of whether they're a soprano, or sound like a mob boss.

So, I'm playing piano for her (ok, plunking out the melody on the piano -- damn you mom, you were right. I DO regret quitting lessons), and I say "Ok, this goes up pretty high, can you hit this note?"

I play the note on the piano.

She opens her mouth and out comes a very musical sound. To clarify, it sounded much like the music they use in the shower scene in "Psycho". Reee, reee, reee.




Is this the note?





So, uh, serenity now, go to your happy place, ohm and all that jazz. Just do NOT laugh. Running away with my hands over my ears probably isn't a good "self esteem" option either.

Thing is, somehow, when I'm sitting listening to it by myself, I can keep a straight face no problem. It's when I'm sitting there with the audition panel, who are some of the funniest folks I know, and I can just look over and KNOW what's going through their heads, despite their poker faces.

So, wish us all luck. I always tell the kids who are nervous that the audition panel is sitting there WANTING them to do well, and not hoping they'll screw up. For the most part, that's true. However, we usually hope there's one truly awful kid who will haunt our dreams for nights to come.

Tune in shortly for results.