ABOUT ME

It was the fall of 2007, and I was seeing signs in the halls at my middle school announcing auditions for that year’s big musical: “The Pirates of Penzance.”  I knew I had to try out, but my Mom had different ideas.  She was balancing a hectic grad school schedule with raising (chauffeuring) four boys, who attended four different schools, and she wasn’t willing to take on one more extracurricular activity.  "Maybe next year..."

Well, I couldn't wait another year.  I didn’t know it at the time, but “Schoolhouse Rock” was to be the big show the following year.  Could you imagine “Schoolhouse Rock” being a child’s introduction to the wonderful world of theatre?  We might not be here if it had been mine.  By the day of the audition, I had carefully laid out my plan.  My older brother, Tom, ran cross country, and when practice was done each day, he waited under a tree by the administration building where my mom picked him up.  When auditions were over—coincidentally at about the same time that my brother’s practice ended—I’d simply walk over there and wait under the tree with Tom.  After singing “My Country tis of Thee” and a solo rendition of “Happy Birthday,” addressed to the show’s director, I was on my way.  Tom was surprised to see me walking up to him, but not as surprised as my mom was when I got in the car and told her I had just come from auditions for Gilbert & Sullivan's magnum opus. 

The next day I learned what a callback was.  I was called back for Frederick, a pretty hefty role for those of you who only like musicals written after 1900.  "If you get the role you can do it, but if you don't, you can try again next year," my momager said to me after we ran lines from the provided side.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get the role, but I was cast as a policeman.  My mom saw how hard I’d prepared for the audition, and she must have sensed how much it meant to me, because she arranged a carpool with another mom, and I was able to do the show.  I think Frederick went to someone else because I struggled with word “invariably.”  To this day, I avoid it assiduously.