My Experience...
So, one of my absolute favorite guilty pleasure shows is Oxygen's The Glee Project. Being a musical theatre gleek, this show is my cup of tea. I love watching contestants compete in performance-based challenges, such as weekly homework assignment group numbers, recording studio sessions, choreography lessons, music video shoots, and (my favorite) last chance performances for the week's bottom 3 contenders. I think that the boot-camp environment is so educational and motivational, even if the contestants don't happen to win the guest starring arc on Glee.
Being the major gleek that I am, I was shocked to realize that I had missed the auditions for the first season of TGP in the fall of 2010. (I had just started college and was overwhelmed by that experience, but still, it was pretty suprising.) When Season 1 aired last summer, I was immediately enamored and thought, "Hey, I can do that, and I want to be on Glee...", thus sealing my desire to audition for Season 2. When auditions were finally opened (on my birthday!) last fall, I spent weeks trying to decide what to sing (from the list of required songs) for my online submission video. I wanted to be on this show more than anything else in my life. I finally decided on Irene Cara's power ballad "Out Here on My Own" from the iconic Fame.
Being the perfectionist that I am, I realized as soon as I uploaded the video that it was not my best work. However, I still hoped it would maybe catch the casting director's attention. I knew that I would have a better shot if I also auditioned for the show in person too, so I drove up to NYC with my mom, brother, sister, and boyfriend in November for the first day of open auditions. We got there at 6:30 a.m. and the line leading inside was already stretched around the block. As time went by and oodles of talented people walked out, saying that they were eliminated in the first round (including one of my incredibly talented friends from home), I began to get discouraged.
After a grueling five hours in the bitter, windy, cold, we finally got inside. We were given a couple moments to warm up before shooting promo shots for OxygenTV and then we were told to line up by our numbers. We handed in our paperwork and answered a few questions, and the next thing I knew, we were being divided into groups of five and lining up outside the audition rooms. We didn't have to wait more than a minute before going into a room. A pair of adjudicators introduced themselves to us and told us just to have fun before telling us to begin. I was the fourth contestant to sing. By that time, I had met so many talented people who hadn't gotten through, that I wasn't even nervous; I didn't think I stood a chance in the world. I belted out my jazzy remix of John Legend's "Ordinary People", and I was excited that my last hurrah came out without a hitch.
When all five of us had finished singing, the adjudicators discussed each of us for a few minutes as we all discussed how we were glad it was over while simultaneously getting nervous about what the casting assistants would decide. The assistants began their speech by thanking us all for coming, we were all very talented, and we should all continue to pursue music... etc, etc, and so forth. They said they were only going to call back one contestant to move on to the next round... me.
Imagine my shock and disbelief and amazement.. that moment was incredibly surreal. They put a green armband with my number around my wrist and sent me upstairs to a holding room for the next round. The room was a dance studio that contained no more than 60 people who were eagerly chatting among themselves and singing with each other. Over the next few hours, I met so many wonderful people and had a lot of fun with the room-wide jam-seshes that occurred rather frequently. I found out that since NYC was the last stop on the audition tour and since the venue was pretty small, the judges were being more selective with their decisions.
When I finally got called to go to the next room to perform again (to a supportive round of applause from my fellow contenders), the nervous butterflies that tend to chill in my stomach during auditions began to dance again. I sat out in the hallway, meeting more great people and waiting for my chance to sing again. I met a lot of friendly Oxygen employees who got to know me and encouraged me to do my best. When I finally went in, a really nice lady greeted me along with the red "recording" light of the camera that sat to her right. I sang "Ordinary People" again... she told me that I did a great job, and asked if I could sing another song that wasn't on the official song list for the competition.
My nervous mind instantly blanked on the bazillion songs that I knew I knew. I stared out the window and saw some Broadway billboards, which reminded me that American Idiot was the last show that I had seen on Broadway, which reminded me that I was pretty good at Green Day's "21 Guns". I sang it, but my nerves definitely got the best of me and I didn't sing anywhere near as well as I wanted to. I knew that this was the end even before a sorry TGP worker informed me. However, he told me that they still really liked me and if I ever happened to be in LA, look up open Glee auditions; he was sure I could get on the show. He also said that I still stood a chance with my online audition tape, so I shouldn't give up my hope of making it to the LA Glee Project Callbacks yet. He said that if I made it, I would find out in the beginning of December.
As disappointed as I was not to make it further in the competition, I was more than grateful to have made it as far as I had. I made it further than thousands of others who auditioned, many of them super talented. Of course, I was disappointed in myself for messing up in my last callback, but if The Glee Project happens to have a third season, I am not messing around; I'm playing to win. :)
Stay tuned for my views on the current season's contenders!
Love, Leaza
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