I was bouncing off walls after Spelling Bee last night, so I didn't sleep much and had to be up for my 8 a.m. double knitting class. That went well, we did a small 30 stitch sampler with a heart in two different colors, which I did manage to figure out (except for the bindoff) and finish before leaving for the day. I think that helped to be able to see how it's supposed to be going, because once you start swapping colors it gets a bit weird. After that, I watched a talk on this lady doing her own dyeing yarn business and setting up geeky yarn kits of some kind.

Debbie asked me if I could "entertain" Rae today while she's at a boat race. She asked for all afternoon and night, but I had my audition today so I said I could only do until 5 or so. However, I was kind of out of ways to "entertain" and that was pretty clear--nothing major going on today other than a UFO exhibit I suggested, but Rae said it would give her nightmares. We went to Starbucks and for fro-yo, I took her to a park so we could swing on swings for awhile for an hour, then went back to her place and I showed her some songs from Avenue Q, with varying reactions. Which is to say she found some of it quite funny and then had enough. Annoyingly, her attention span is about 20 minutes max for any video and I felt like the "I have to kill time and keep her entertained alllllll afternoon" was waning. I told her I had to leave to eat dinner circa 3:30 because I was leaving for the audition by 5 and had no idea how long it was going to take. She wasn't too thrilled at that but had to go along with it. I took her to Panera, but by this point she had somehow gotten depressed and was just kind of sitting there silently. At this point I admit I was kind of bored of trying to "entertain" her and just wanted to leave and go do what I've been waiting to do for months already. Got her some ice cream and then took her home a bit early.

The audition: it was pretty easy to find the location, thank goodness, and the people there seemed really nice. Boris(!) WAS recruited as the musical director, so it was good to see him. Only 10 people showed up for the first night of auditions--the second one is Monday night, who knows how many people will go to that one. On the one hand, small number of auditioners usually is a plus for me. On the other hand, 8 out of 10 of them were extraordinarily gifted at what they do and I probably came in 9th in the rankings for that evening. (I note there was one other nerd girl there who did a bit worse than I did. She seemed a little flat-ish compared to everyone else doing very cartoony behavior.) Morgan asked if Hugo could send in a video audition since he's in a show tonight and out of town on Monday and the lady said "well, maybe if we don't get a full cast by Monday night," but I pretty much figure they wouldn't need to. Oh well.

I actually think I did very well, mind you--Morgan was happy with "Lost in the Brass" in particular and Boris said, "I love that song"--and I added in some strategic brief sniffles during "Adelaide's Lament" that I liked. But as the audition went on, I realized where I ranked again, you know? Never got to read for Kate because only two women, Helen and Morgan, were allowed to read for her and everyone else rotated around doing bears and Thistletwat. Sigh. Not that I didn't know that, of course.

They had us do one round of songs--the "regular" one (I guess) and then the "character" one. They didn't do callbacks for this show, presumably because they did "callback" behavior stuff right after. They had the girls (and Peter, and Omar because he wanted to) sing "Special," the guys did "The Internet is for Porn" and "Purpose," and then some lines were read. The "Mrs. Thistletwat fires Kate" scene for women, the beginning of "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" for Kate and Princeton, and "Kate and Princeton meet the Bad Idea Bears" for pretty much everybody. A few people got to do more (I don't know what, it wasn't me) after that and the rest of us were dismissed...probably somewhere between 7:30-7:45, so not that long.

People I knew there: Boris as musical director. Previous castmates: Omar, Morgan, and Carter from Shrek, who I have finally met in person now (he said he lives in Fair Oaks and hasn't gotten over to DMTC lately). Nice guy. I also saw Erik who I both know from work and from his performing at Sutter Street. New people I did not know stood out very well:

(a) Peter, who I'm presuming is trans/non-binary/something ambiguous (I would have guessed guy, but see below) because they auditioned for both male and female roles, but I would guess is leaning towards the male ones. They did an excellent job of high pitched talking in general and high pitched cartoony dudes in particular. They did "I Believe" from Book of Mormon, including imaginary hand holding, and "Magic Foot" from Spelling Bee, with actual foot action.

(b) Helen, who pretty much could do all roles in the show by herself and was obviously very, very gifted vocally. I presume she'll get Kate Monster, with Morgan ranking a close second. Those were the only two who got to read for Kate, anyway. She did Kate well, she did Lucy well, she did everything well. I am wondering what they will do about the two parts that have a required ethnicity, since there were no outright Asian actresses there. Helen was some kind of ambiguous PoC (I'd probably guess something like Filipino, but what do I know) and I wondered if they'd cast her as Christmas Eve if they had no one more suitable coming in on Monday. But she seemed pretty slam dunk for Kate and/or Lucy, so I'm guessing no.

(c) There was one AA lady auditioner (I won't mention her name since I didn't see it written out and I would be guessing on correct spelling), but she seemed to be being considered for everything. She was pretty good as well.

.(d) Daniel, a beardy guy who reminded me of Eddie, was apparently told about this audition YESTERDAY and had about a half day to prepare due to work, and thus pulled out an old song he forgot some of the lyrics to ("Turn It Off"). He clearly remembered the other song (four pages of it, apparently) though, and he was obviously so good that he'll get cast as something. He was A Character. Well, pretty much everyone was at this audition, really, but especially for those things. A few other people fumbled at songs, but I don't think the production team seemed to care really? On a related note, Omar did "Man or Muppet" and had a little eyeball-hand-ring thing he pulled out to do a puppet. Hysterical. His other number was "In Summer." I loved that three different "Book of Mormon" songs were done in this, albeit different ones. Erik did "You And Me But Mostly Me." All very good.

Post-audition analysis and guesses: five women in this audition, and the female parts (ruling out the PoC characters that obviously I can't do) are Kate, Lucy, 2 bears (director said they could be whatever gender), Mrs. Thistletwat. Presumably if only 5 women audition for this show and that's all we had tonight, I could get in, but who knows how many will show on Monday. If there's more than that, then probably not me. Probably doesn't matter who does bears/Mrs. T since Mrs. T is only in two scenes and the bears are only in a few more. You could probably just have two people who play those two, have one of them do Mrs. T and then those people do the "extra arm" scenes.

There was a brief friendly hangout outside of the door afterwards and I was all, "I really like these people, too bad I won't be in this," and said I look forward to seeing them in the show. People pointed out to me afterwards that I could just be an extra arm for the two-armed characters (Nicky, Trekkie). I pointed out that there might be a height differential for those because the puppeteers doing those need to be close together. I said that Omar (6'6) and Carter (something like 6'5, I think?) should be cast as Trekkie and Nicky and then the other one does the other arm since they'd match in height. Also that's who I'd guess for those parts anyway.

Daniel I'd probably guess for Brian--he seems most suited for it. He could do anything (like Omar and Carter could probably do it too, but see above). Erik and Peter seemed to be up for Princeton, but Erik gave off some very good Rod vibes so I'd probably put him for that one. Peter seemed a bit punk to do Rod in presentation. I presume Helen gets Kate and Morgan gets Lucy, or vice versa possibly, as those were the best for those parts. Not going to guess on the PoC characters, for reasons already stated.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the experience and had a great time, but as usual, once you get to the end of the audition you remember that you aren't quite as good as other people. Sigh. Well, it's over now. If I don't get this one, there's TnT again. Said this to Morgan and she said she had two other auditions after this one if this doesn't go.

I got home and Ashley said she had gone to karaoke, so I met her there. Did a few songs, drank a Creamsicle, talked about yarn and whatever, nothing too major going on. Saw another potential hottie that had no interest in me, sat by two hot Indian twins (ladies) who seemed interesting, but I had to leave before 11 because of class tomorrow morning. I also stupidly checked FB and saw that Scott had posted that he was at Jesus Christ Superstar tonight with Robert and Janene--I wasn't invited. (Perhaps Cameron was not either, or declined, I dunno.) So I got all in a snit that I wasn't invited even though I couldn't have gone, but then again, none of them knew that, so....I am all butthurt again. Not that I'd expect Scott to invite me, but Robert I would and now I'm sad, but maybe he didn't because I said I didn't want to invite Scott to anything. I dunno any more. Sigh.

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