Chaos Attraction

Coney Island Christmas Auditions

2019-09-13, 9:34 p.m.

Literally the only thing I can say that was interesting about Thursday is that I discovered that the tutu skirt I bought at Goodwill still had the security tag on it. I took it back there and when I walked in, THEN the thing went off. I held up the tag and said over the alarm, "THIS IS WHY I'M HERE!" The guy promptly removed it, wondering why it only went off when I came in and not vice versa.


I am really not sleeping much this week. Woke up at 3 a.m. twice, got six hours of sleep one night. Last night I went to bed at 8 p.m. and was wide awake by 1 a.m. again. What is the fucking point?


Happy full moon Friday the Thirteenth!

Today I went to the auditions for Coney Island Christmas.

I had a wardrobe malfunction about an hour before I left, as a bottle exploded on me and totally wrecked the moon dress (happy full moon night!) I had on, dammit. (And the washers here are still broken for weeks.) So I changed into my cute new red outfit from the weekend and Anita the director really liked it. Coincidence? Synchronicity?

This was clearly The Kids' Audition on a Friday night, good lord. I counted seven kids (one being Isadora from As You Like It!), three moms accompanying their kids (two of which may be auditioning, I was not sure but they did read), three older ladies going for Older Shirley, one teen boy, one teen girl (wearing a bracelet that said "Let Your Freak Flag Fly"), and then Robert and Janene (who said she wasn't auditioning and would just read) and me. Laure was also there and she was shocked I didn't get into Death By Design and said I was very good, not to mention charming in As You Like It. Janene said I was good too, but I had to point out they were referring to different auditions. I was glad Robert and Janene were there because I was feeling pretty weirded out being an adult in this bunch. Dear god, I hope more of our friends or some more adults at least audition on the other night next Wednesday.

Anita seems nice enough, so that's a yay. We read most of the play aloud, which is about 50 pages single spaced (Robert was all, "I read online it was short, but... yeah, this is really short."). The plot is pretty simple: Great-Grandma Shirley tells her great-granddaughter Clara about how she was in the Thanksgiving play as a turkey and then gets cast as Jesus (the narrator) for her loud voice in the Christmas pageant. The teachers running the show, Mr. Hilton and Miss Glace, love her, but her mom objects to a Jewish kid playing Jesus, even though her dad is all for it and points out that duh, Jesus is Jewish. Suffice it to say the kid gets the part and they then do the Christmas pageant, which mishmashes Book Of Mormon-style by pitching in Santa, Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Past.... Silly fun, really.

I'm guessing what with all the kids that they won't be having adults do some of the kid parts, which sometimes happens in this show according to the Internet. That bums me out, as that was kind of the selling point for me. So the adult lady parts are Older Shirley (not my age range), Mrs. Abramowitz the mom/party pooper, and Miss Glace. I would like to note that Miss Glace is the music teacher, who plays piano* and is straight up a French lady from France, saying stuff like "pardonnez-moi" and "tres magnifique!" So clearly I can't do that part either, realistically speaking. I took a year of French in college, but god knows I never got the nasal accent.

* oddly enough, "does anyone play piano" was not asked on the form, but I don't. And we all know on my singing, though everyone is singing in unison so who knows if you could tell about my voice there.

I never was asked to read Mrs. Abramowitz, but I was asked to read Older Shirley and Miss Glace. I actually think I did Older Shirley in New York voice fairly well, because I've at least learned that one, but clearly I can't do that part. As for Miss Glace, I at least attempted a French accent, which came out okay. Laure wanted to read for Miss Glace at the end and certainly had a lively time with the French accent, but I dunno if she'd be cast for that one since Miss Glace in the script obviously has A Thing for Mr. Hilton and even plants a kiss on him at the end of the play*, unless they cast an older Mr. Hilton...and then in the epilogue it's mentioned that they get married and have twins, so yeah, maybe not casting Laure for that one.

* this makes me wonder: is it a cheek kiss? Full lips? Frenching in front of students? It's very end of Love Actually, isn't it?

My casting guesses:
* Isadora as Clara, she did pretty well at that.
* Robert read either Mr. Hilton or Mr. Abramowitz the entire time, so clearly he could do either/both of those. And if no other adult dudes read for it, he may very well be doing both at once.
* Maybe Laure as Older Shirley, as she did the most "voices" of the three who read.

I regret to say that I don't think any of the kids could do Young Shirley. The entire point of Shirley, both older and younger, is that she has a loud voice compared to all the other kids, and none of these kids could do one. I like Isadora, but she ain't loud. I don't think most of them were doing that great (they were all really flat, but I guess that's the humor of "bad little kid pageants"), but one kid (Jacqueline) actually did Angel Gabriel pretty well. Watching some little boy in the audition "read" was kinda painful because his mom had to read to him first before he could say a line. Maybe he's too young for this if he can't read? How's he gonna learn lines? The teenage girl reading Young Shirley might have been the closest to loud voicewise, but when she was supposed to be reading Young Shirley crying, she didn't even try to do that. What?

Seriously, Cameron should be in this as Miss Glace. I can't picture anyone but her pulling it off and it's bizarre that she's only going to be assisting in this one. (As a vocal coach? Anita said she was going to have one but didn't say who.) I could see Laurel doing it, maybe, if she can do a French accent, but I have no idea on that. I presume she'll audition when she's back on Wednesday.

Anyway: I think I did the best I could, I don't really think I suit any of the roles, and being a kid extra may not be in the cards here like I was shooting for. On the other hand, there may be slim pickins for adult roles. Who knows who shows up on night 2. Anita didn't say when she'd tell anyone, just that everyone would be contacted one way or another and you don't have to come back for night two. I dunno how strongly I feel about getting into this one now under the various circumstances.


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