Audition Two: The Rite of Spring

Well, Audition Two is for the local Professional Ballet's version of the The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinski.  We are told about this by a lovely woman who works with the PB's cast and also as the Children's Ballet Mistress.  We learn that the choreographer asked for "small boys" to look at as the "Sacrificial Child" but that the original "small boys" were too small - the choreography in this thing is hard and have you ever tried to count, you know, just count 1, 2, 3, 4 in parts of this musical piece?  If not, try.   So, Darling Son gets to audition.  He is auditioning with his Frenemy - a boy who is a truly lovely dancer but at times extremely difficult to get to know.  My kid is social and chatty.  I think my kid drives Frenemy Boy sortof nuts with his humor, his talkativeness and his social ease.  FB is a Serious Kid who has finally found his thing in ballet.  He is at times demeaning to my kid - calling him names and telling him "Aren't you only going to be just a Broadway dancer or something?"  FB is a better ballet dancer than my kid - but apparently the Famous Choreographer who has flown in from New York wants to see them both.

I take Darling Boy there.  We are surrounded by the Real PB company dancers.  They are HUGE. The men are like great big lion-gazelle type creatures - all are over six feet tall.  Some as tall as 6'5".  The women are lithe.  That's the total word for it:  LITHE.  And very friendly to me and to DB, as they know him from his long time status in countless other performances that the PB has done, mostly Nutcracker but other things too.  This Audition strikes me as different somehow.  In other shows, the PB directors know my kid, and they choose how and when and where to use him (as well as Frenemy Boy) in productions.  They know best. Me?  I just drive to the places they tell us and wash ballet tights.

So, the audition starts in this room and they leave the door open (which never happens).  The music starts.  I have an opportunity to sortof see what is going on.  I love this symphony so much (I am a musician and the high bassoon solo at the beginning is to die for).  The music is floating out the door.   And I am sitting on this bench.  If I scoot over five inches I can see DB.  But he can also see me.  As it is, I can see FB from the position I'm in now.   I worry that my sitting here is distracting for FB and then I get generally agitated so I start walking around.  There's not far to walk. Just up and back.  To the rest room.  I play on my phone.  DB comes out.  "Well, that was totally cool.  It's super hard to count and it's modern and hard and totally fun.  Can we go get a burger with lots of bacon on it now?"  

Today, we learn that they want DB and FB back again for three hours after school today.  I think they are either going to cast them both, or have one be an understudy.  I will drive the car and I go shopping during this time, and then I will wash the tights.  

P.S.  RE: The Potato Eaters.  He did NOT get that part.  The talent agency said they wanted "an American Family that also looks sortof ethnic" and it was unclear who ended up with it.  My kid looks like he was born in Idaho - all blonde hair and steely blue eyes and strong jaw (his Dad is Polish).   I still like potatoes though.

*** UPDATE ON RITE OF SPRING ***

He DID get the part in The Rite of Spring and apparently the Famous New York Choreographer (I am told he is famous but how would I know that, because I don't dance unless I recently sat on an ant hill) LOVED him. He is in the "A" cast apparently.  The show will open in of course, the Spring 2014.  

Audition One: The Potato Eaters

My fourteen year old son went to his first audition for a commercial today.  I want to talk about it but there is no one to really talk to except him, and he of course, is fourteen, and all he can say is "Mom, we just sat at the table and pretended to eat potatoes.  My pretend mom was really nice.  She's smaller than you are."

Let me back up.  So my Darling Boy is my only child.  He is this verbal, kind, charming kid who absolutely knows how to work me.  Like me, he is a ham.  Unlike me, he does not have the need to talk to every single person on the planet he meets as if he were some kind of anxious poodle.  He's like his father that way.   DB was bitten by the Acting Bug via ballet dancing.  The local professional ballet company came to the school when he was in second grade.  He came home and made a bee line for his father, talking about how high they jumped and how fast they could spin.  Then he said, and I am not making this up:  "And the girls were HOT."  This, from a seven year old.   My husband folded his paper aside and said "How hot?"

DB was on the ski team, the soccer team and husband's baseball team.  Over the years, that faded and now he dances about two to three hours a day, five days a week during the school year and six hours on Saturday.  During the summer it's about eight hours a day, five days a week.  For eight weeks.  What started the acting wish began when DB learn that his friend, who was his age, went to Broadway, as one of the Billy Elliot dancers.  As the character of Billy.  Now the kid is touring in London or something.  So, last summer we took DB to Broadway to show him what New York and Broadway were like.  And that was that.  In Times Square his mouth fell open.  Darling Husband asked "What's wrong with him? Is he having a panic attack or something?"  But DB just turned in a slow circle, head looking straight up, and said "Oh. My. GOD. I am SO going to live HERE!"   And so now, DB knows what he wants to do.  He wants to be in front of people.  Dancing, singing, acting, or if he gets this thing he went for today:  Eating potatoes.

DB got the lead roles in his junior high school plays and then went through this intense crisis because the plays took time away from ballet.  And the school plays were much more social and provided much more instant gratification than ballet ever could.  Then he felt all guilty about ballet, which brooks no other lover. Just ask any professional ballet dancer and they will explain this to you in grisly detail.  Finally, one of his favorite, most terrifying and most beloved teachers phoned me to explain that while he would make a wonderful ballet dancer, she believed his heart was in acting. I then learned that her son is a professional actor as well.  A famous one.  She made a phone call or two and the next thing you know, he had an agent. A real one - not the kind that you have to pay all this money to or anything.  And then he went to a weekend acting workshop for commercials.  And then he got some photographs made.  And then they called us two days ago and said he needed to show up to this audition to pretend to eat potatoes with his pretend family with the pretend mother who is younger and nicer and smaller than me.

I read the little sheet that went with the Potato Eater Audition.  They are looking for an 'ethnic' family.  My son looks a lot like a very young Leonardo DiCaprio.  He couldn't look more All American Idaho Potato if he tried.  But ethnic?  Not unless Eastern European is considered ethnic.   DB took it all in stride.  As he put it.  "Dude, Mom, this is just practice.  That's all.  Just practice.  Relax. I don't expect to get it.  But I might as well practice.  I'll probably be in 100 auditions before I ever get anything."   So I figured that I might as well start counting the auditions someplace.  And that place is Right Here.  Audition One: The Potato Eaters.

He still is going to dance ballet.  He loves it.  And, as he put it "I can tell that there are about a jillion kids about there who can act.  And who can sing too.  But I don't think there are as many that can DANCE and sing and act.  If I'm going to get there, it will be because I can do all three.  That's what I think."

I think I need to go make potatoes for dinner anyway.  Just for luck.