Monday, May 21, 2012

Real Drunk Audition Hangover

First audition day went far better than expected.  Kelly had a last minute, early call in time at Disney, so she was unable to see any of the auditions, which was too bad because she has a great laugh and would have been knocked out seeing the ladies dance to Amy's choreography.  I certainly was.  David came in with a ton of preparation and was in command; fun and decisive in his approach.  His great energy and attention serve to "push" performers into either stepping up and matching the intensity he brings or backing down and retreating into one's personal cave. Auditions, to me, are always an exercise in discomfort, so the sooner we take our frailty and stick it in our backpocket, the better.  Best to get to the task of pretending we're the biggest stars in the world and completely owning the (49-seat) theatre.
Wearing my "vocal guy" hat was probably the simplest task of the day.  Since we are working to track (an iPod into a sound system -- welcome to the 21st century musical audition), the primary criterion for moving forward was "we have to be able to hear everything."  Being close to the action, I got to hear some lovely voices, but if the "Streisand belt" (the way she sounded circa 60's-70's) wasn't a part of the singer's chops rep, there would be relatively little chance for a lovely voice to be heard over a disco track.  Donna Summer is a classic example of a belt that gets heard over booty-shakin'....  
David's going to take a day or two to wrestle with some casting options and then the production team will get into the discussion.  
I'm going to keep posting Real Drunk demo tracks to Soundcloud as a fun exercise.  You might be able to hear me screwing stuff up or laughing or even autotuning like T Pain -- sometimes all hell breaks loose when I layer a vocal while trying to find the right melody.  They're just demos and I continually learn from them.  You can leave comments right on the track at specific parts if there's anything you like or anything that bugs you.  Feel free.
Thanks to everybody for coming out to audition yesterday.  I really enjoyed spending time you and look forward to seeing you again!

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