Hey everyone!!
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, got to spend some time with friends and family, got what they wanted for your respective holidays, and got to spend some time relaxing!
This blog post I'm about to do has been about three weeeks in the making-as in, I'm late putting this thing up, and for that I'm sorry!
Anyway-On with the show...
So, a few weeks ago, my best friend and I went for coffee and drove around aimlessly like we do whenever we get together for coffee. While we were parked in a random parking lot, I recieved a twitter (follow me on Twitter: @BroadwayBaby23), saying "Could YOU be the new Cosette? Les Miserables hosts an open casting call!"
What what??? Les Miserables is my #1, all time favorite musical beyond any other I've ever seen. To be Cosette-uhm, I'm there!
Turning to the article, I see that the casting agents for the MOVIE, were going to be holding an open call for Cosette.
I quickly tell my friend, who thinks it'd be pretty cool to try it-even if I don't get it, I could still say I went!
The next day, I call my college roommate-another Les Mis freak,and leave a message, basically telling her that we were going-there were no options of NOT going to this!
On the day of the open call, I caught a 6:28am train. Anyone who knows me, knows I love sleep, if I could-I would MARRY sleep I'm so in love with it, so for me to get up this early, there had to be love at the other end of the stick-and there was!
Open call registration was going to start at 10am, with the actual auditions beginning at 11. I picked up my roommate from Port Authority, grabbed a tea, and headed over to Ripley Grier studio, where the casting call was going to take place.
Blah blah blah..confusion about what was going on/where to go/who had what list...Let's move on!
We FINALLY got numbers to audition around 10am-turns out, the registration began with an unofficial list at 6am when girls started getting there-oops!!
Now we're all hanging out-all 300 of us, waiting for our number, to go in and sing at the top of our lungs, hoping to get a part.
Now, it's 11:30 or so, and girls have stopped being called in. We were packed into a dance rehearsal room, just kind of staring at each other, each of us lost in our conversations with whoever was around, or whoever we had come with.
I decided that Im going to die in the hot dance studio, and my roommate and I go back out into the lobby where more girls were milling about-everyone very confused.
Finally, one of the casting directors comes out and says:
"First off, let me thank you all for coming down! We know some of you have traveled from other states just to be here!
There are about 300 of you, so we need to move this along! Therefore, we're going to call you in, in groups of 25, and start typing girls out. We will ask those of you we want to stay, to stay and sing for us!"
A little disappointing, but not entirely unexpected! Welcome to casting calls, kids! YOU WILL BE TYPED!
Type- when a casting director is looking for a specific: height, weight, haircolor, age, resembelence, etc, to fit the part of the character they are casting. Those that don't FIT type during an audition will sometimes not be seen/heard because they don't fit what is being looked for.
Finally, our group is called in and we're lined up in front of the main casting director, and her two associates. They were very friendly, and had us all spread out. You could tell we were all a bit nervous by the way we were looking at each other, and how we were all standing and everything.
But, they were very nice, and kept thanking us for coming down. They told us this had been a project they were working on for a long time, and they had a very specific type of girl that they were looking for to play the role of Cosette.
With that, they took our resumes and headshots-which had been collected earlier in the day, and began doing little interviews with us as we stood there (where we went to school, what our major was, when we graduated, where we were from, and even asked about some of the things on our resumes).
After speaking with us, they went through our resumes again, whispering to each other and taking little notes, writing things on our resumes and put them in 2 different stacks-those they wanted to hear sing, and those they did not.
Thaking us again, they reminded us they were looking for something specific-and in my group of 25 girls-they asked 5 to stay. My roommate and I were NOT on that list.
So ended my day.
But, looking back on it, I'm GLAD I did it! Look, you go on these open calls, and you know you have MAYBE a 50/50 shot of being seen or heard. They're called OPEN calls for a reason! And they drive you insane, and they make you wait, and you know you'll spend ALL day sometimes, sitting in a room full of competition, making polite conversation with each other while you size each other up-ALL in hopes of getting seen for a single part.
If I hadn't gone, I would always think "I should've gone to that...I wonder", and I wouldn't have been able to look at myself in the mirror anymore!
Yes, I wish things had ended differently, and I would've been asked to sing for them. But, I'm glad I went, I would go again, and I had a good time!
Besides...they ended up casting Hollywood anyway-even AFTER all that!
Oh well!
Til next time....
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