Alice’s Adventures in an Arts Career

I received a call yesterday about the audition I did for that production of Company in the fall.  As I expected, I did not get into the show.  But that’s fine.  It was more important to me that I did the audition rather than the results.  I did it just to get myself out of a slump and be a little more proactive about the things I want to achieve.  I never excepted to get in.  So, that’s one more audition under my belt and some good experience and lessons learned to take to the next one.  Beside, as it stand I’ve got plenty going on in my life right now to keep me busy and artistically engaged.  I’ll worry about the fall when it arrives.  Until then, I’ll just revel in the things I’m doing right now.

I’m going absolutely bonkers trying to iron out the last little wrinkles in my choral piece before sending it off to Jeff. It’s the details that can kill you.  There are so many little choices to make now that the big ones are done, and each can have a significant impact on the clarity and ultimate ease of performance, so I want to get everything just right.  The problem is, I can’t make up my mind.  I keep second guessing myself.  Should the fermata be on this beat or that one?  Should I mark the piece as Largo or Adagio, or maybe switch to an entirely different language of musical terms?  Is it better to push the altos a little low or the tenors a little high?  Should this section be two measures of 2/2 or one measure of 4/4?  What will make it easiest to conduct?  What will make it easiest to sing? How do I know when I’ve put in too many dynamic markings?  How do I know when I haven’t added enough?

I realize, in the end, much of this won’t matter.  Usually a choir will perform a piece however they want regardless of what’s actually on the page.  It’s just the way things go.

At the very least, I’ve decided on a title, though even that process was fraught with uncertainty and flip-flopping.  It will be titled “If Thou Wilt, Remember”.  I’m not sure it’s ideal, but it is the best of the titles that I considered.  See, “Song” just wasn’t going to cut it.  That title was just too easy to skip over.  There were other titles on my short list, all of which were based on lines found in the poetry. I really wanted to name it “Plant Thou no Roses”, but despite the fact that I really liked it, the line would have made no sense as a title since it comes at a random place in the poem.  The other suggestion was “Sing no Sad Songs for Me”.  This could have worked.  It sums up the meaning of the poem for the most part and falls as the antecedent half of the first couplet.  However, I just can’t stand alliteration in serious titles.  It’s fine for fun, up-beat pieces, but whenever I see alliterative titles for somber or serious works, I just roll my eyes.  Plus, S is the worst letter to alliterate.  All you get is one long hiss.

So “If Thou Wilt, Remember” is the title. Please note the comma.  The comma is very important. The meaning of the entire line is changed without it.

Well, I must continue to work on these many little details.  I feel like every time I think I’m done, I find one more thing that needs fixing.

This is something I’ve been keeping under my hat for about a month and a bit now.  It’s been all I could do to not shout it from the roof tops, but until things were confirmed and made certain, I couldn’t say anything.  But now I can.

I am going to become a published composer.

Do you remember that piece I was working on for my final choral arrangement course? Well, Jeff Smallman liked it so much, he wants to publish it through his own publishing company. I couldn’t say anything until the course was over and until I had made some revisions and he’d taken another look at it.  However, I got confirmation today that he wants to publish.

I’m so excited, I can’t even tell you.  This really is surreal.  I know in that previous post I mentioned how there had been others from the course in previous years who had been published.  I aspired to write as well as I could, knowing the president that these people had set.  however, I never for a second thought this would happen.  I’m just a little giddy and have been bursting with this secret.

I’m going to have to change the title.  “Song” just isn’t that catchy, even though it is the title of the poem.  I’m just going to read through the text again and find a good line to use.

There are two people in particular whom I need to acknowledge in all this.  My Dad and my friend Josh, both of whom helped me by being my sounding board and objective ear. So, thank you to the both of you for all your help and advice, even if we did argue over whether certain bars should be in 4/4 or in 6/8 (Dad, you were right). Your advice meant a lot to me and I love you both.

All this has now made me take a second look at some of my previous compositions and consider brushing them up and seeing where I can take them.  Or rather, where they can take me.  Maybe I’ll be adding another job description to my name. How exciting would that be?

This evening was the first read-through of The Taming of the Shrew.  It was the first time meeting the entire cast.  Many cast members I know from either A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream or from Q1 Hamlet. However, there are some new faces and I’m looking forward to working with everyone.  It seems like it is going to be a really good, dedicated yet easy-going group.  I can’t wait to start blocking and doing character work.

Speaking of characters, I’ve been given two extra roles.  I am playing “The Lord” in the induction scene and “Nathaniel” in Act 4 (one of Petruchio’s servants).  However despite the addition of two extra roles, they still do not close the giant gap I have between acts 1 and 4.  Basically, I am on for the induction, which I practically dominate and then I twiddle my thumbs until act 4 at which point I run around like chicken with its head cut off switching between three different characters.  Ooooh, it’s gonna be fun!

So, to recap I’m playing The Lord, Nathaniel, The Pedant and The Widow.  That’s a lot of “The’s”

I like that we’re doing the induction.  A lot of productions don’t do the intro to Shrew.  I can understand why, since it doesn’t necessarily add anything to the plot, but it does set it up differently.  For those of you who don’t know the Induction, it basically creates a “play-within-a-play” structure.  The Lord finds the drunk and sleeping beggar Christopher Sly and decides to play a trick on him.  He has his servants take Sly home, dress and clean him and when he wakes they pretend that he is the Lord of the house and convince him that he has simply been in a state of insane delirium for 15 years.  He is not a beggar but a great lord with a beautiful wife (The Lord’s page boy dressed as a woman).  As part of the ruse, the servants call for entertainment for their newly recovered “Lord” and part of that entertainment is a play, which is the story of The Taming of the Shrew.  The play then continues from there as most know it.  The only strange part of this induction is that this part of the story is never brought back again.  The opening establishes this “play-within-a-play” structure, but it does not close with it, nor does it ever make reference to it again.  This is why it is not often done, since the play is already quite long and can stand on its own without the intro.  However, it is fun to do.

The show will run from June 23-7th on the UWO campus.  We haven’t chosen an exact location yet, however it will be done outside.  I’ll post more details as they come and I’m sure I’ll be writing plenty about my experiences over the course of the rehearsal and performance process.

Well, I did my “Company” audition yesterday.  It went alright.  Not my best performance in the world, but it was decent.  Though, I won’t be surprised in the least if I don’t get in. I won’t even upset that much, since it was such a spur of the moment sort of thing.

But it’s good I did it.  I need more formal audition experience.  The more I do it, the better I’ll become at doing auditions.  It is as much a skill a singing, or acting and any other type of performance, and it takes some practice.  So I think I’m committed to doing as many auditions as I can.

What I really liked about this audition was the improv and movement activity they asked me to do.  Before going into the audition I was given a piece of paper with the instructions “Tell us a story about yourself or a relationship you have with someone.”  They wanted to see me move and be as animated as I could while telling them a story.   I told them about my Mom and how she was not just my Mom but she was also my teacher. ” Well, that’s not entirely true,” I said.  My Mom was never my teacher, Mrs. Hietala was.  I then started explaining the difference between “Mom” and “Mrs. Hietala”.  It was a lot of fun, though a little awkward, since I was trying to move as much as I could without it becoming phony and random.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the experience.  The panel were very nice and inviting.  And now I’ve got one more under my belt and I’m keeping my eyes out for more.

After I was feeling all gloomy and sorry for myself last night, wallowing in my own self-doubt about the Summer Shakespeare, I decided to just do something about it.  I did an audition search and found out that TOMORROW auditions are being held for a production of Sondheim’s “Company”.  I thought “What the heck, I’ll do it!”

Well, this morning, I got a call  about the Summer Shakespeare.  Turns out I’m in it.  I have two very small roles, but I don’t care.  I’m absolutely over the moon!  I just wanted to be back in a show and working with some of the same cast from last year.  I’ve also offered to do some set-designing work.  I’ve got some cool simple ideas that will dress up our outdoor space.

I’ve also just realized, this is only my second successful audition,  EVER! So, I think that’s something special, though again, really strange considering I’ve been in more than two shows.

So, to recap, my summer now includes the  6 week vocal intensive intersession course, the 3 week Shakespeare and Drama course at The Stratford Festival Theatre and now a production of The Taming of the Shrew.  Plus the possibility of being in another show in November depending on how my audition goes tomorrow.

I really couldn’t be more happy, right now.  I think I need to bottle this feeling for the next time I’m in a slump and wallowing in self doubt and pity.

Waiting to hear back about an audition is agony.  Ugh.

It’s one of the universal problems in the arts, especially amateur arts.  There are always a thousand girls lined up to join, but never enough boys.  I went to the Summer Shakespeare auditions and of a pool of roughly 20 people, only 4 were male.  When Vox Humana did out first around of auditions, we had 12 women, but only 4 men.  In dance, theater, music, writing, women are  well represented in numbers, but hardly ever are there enough men.  There are more sopranos in any music faculty than you can shake a stick at, but finding and keeping a tenor takes an act of God.

However, what is even more frustrating is the fact that while there are plenty of women interested in and highly capable of performing, the number of roles and opportunities is almost inversely proportionate.  In most plays there are far more male roles than female.  In my experience your average play has maybe 3-4 female roles (Both leading and bit), while there are plenty for men.  Take Shakespeare for example, the male to female character ratio is never equal (though now that I’ve said that I’m sure someone can quote me a play that is).  When I do auditions I compete with 15 other women for two roles, while 4 men compete for 8 roles.

This is a frustration not only from the performer’s perspective, but also from the director’s. How does one properly cast a well balanced show under these conditions?  With so many women to choose from, one is afford the luxury of being selective and choosing those auditioners who are truly spectacular.  However, when you have a production with 8 male roles and you only get 8 men auditioning, one is left with little choice. Men are at a distinct advantage.

I think this is due in large to two reason.

1) There is still a strong social attitude that girls do art and boys to math.  Women are more encouraged to be creative and artistic.  A young girl wanting to take drama is more acceptable than a young boy.  I suspect this is in part of a reflection of our culture’s discomfort with bending rigid gender codes.  Men are not expected to be as sensitive as girls, and often it can be a problem if they are. Now, I don’t want to necessarily get into debate about social gender codes, sexuality, sex, behaviour or nature vs. nurture.  I simply find that we still have a culture that implicitly and sometime explicitly reinforces certain gender roles and expectations of behavior on our children, and I question their validity.

2) Even though “art is for girls”, the majority of the surviving and accepted artistic canon has been created by men, from a male perspective, largely telling male stories.  Yes, this is changing and the female artistic voice is louder than it has ever been, but it is not yet loud enough to match centuries of patriarchy in art.  There simply are more male opportunities, lots more, in both theater and music.  So even though the world population sits at roughly 50/50 male to female, one would never know based on what one sees on stage. Though I realize when much of the western art canon was created women were not participating and significantly as they are now or history has not recorded their participation, and this probably accounts for much of the “male dominated” perspective.

This is a problem, for all of us.  Our artistic would has become wrapped up in a conflicted ball of patriarchy and gender discomfort.  We have written stories about our men, but we do not want our men to tell them.  We have encouraged our women to express themselves, to be emotional and creative, but created a environment where they are not given equal opportunity to exercise that expression, and are forced into participate in even greater levels of competition.

I would be interested to know what the gender ratio and performance opportunities are like in the dance world, since this is something that I am not familiar with and perhaps is different.

For the sake of the stability and relevancy of our art, I would encourage us to examine our concepts of gender behaviors and examine are ideas surrounding what we value in men and what we value in women. Question whether these assumptions even true.  Art is meant to express the human experience.  As long as we are short changing ourselves with these constricting and completely arbitrary and fabricated gender assumptions and allowing them in shape our artistic institutions and endeavors, our art can not reflect our world.  The day that art can not speak to the true human experience is the day that it becomes irrelevant.

Well, I finished my last jury today, and none of the disasters from dreams happen, so that is good.  In fact, I think it went very well.

I also did an audition for the Summer Shakespeare and the UWO fall play.  Th audition was a series of cold readings, which I hate.  I’m awful at cold readings.  My tongue just sticks on every word as I simply try to process the text on the page.  So I’m not sure I was able to give a very “emotive” performance. But I guess all I can do is sit and wait now.  I’ll be crossing my fingers.  I really want to be in the Summer Shakespeare.  They’re performing The Taming of the Shrew. This is one of my top favourite Shakespeare plays and  several of the actors from last year’s show will be involve.  It would be wonderful to work with them again.  Last summer was one of the best theatrical experiences of my life and I’d love to capture some of that again.  So, I’m holding my breath and hoping.

As I’ve been saying, its a week of lasts.  Tomorrow is my last jury.  I can hardly believe it.  I think there is more pressure this time to do better than I’ve ever done before.  A part of me wants to prove beyond a doubt that I can do what it is I’ve been studying here to do for four years. I want o show everything I’ve learned and accomplished and prove myself good. But another part tells me this is exactly the type of thinking that tends to stand in my way and cause me to stumble just feet short of the finish line.  So I’m staying positive.  I’m telling myself it will be no different than a masterclass or even a lesson.  I will go in there with no added pressure and simply sing and I will accept whatever happens… though I still really just want to bat it out of the ball park this time.  I suppose this is how most people feel before their jury.

It seems that there is at least one  other tradition that has not changed when it comes to my jury.  I’ve been having performers dreams again.  Without fail, I have had one before every major performance.  You know, those dreams where you’re on stage and you don’t know the piece, or you forget the words, or something widely obscure and unlikely happens that destroys your entire performance?

Last year I dreamed I went into my jury wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and was chewing gum.  I tried to sing my jury around this big ball of gum; it wasn’t working out so well.  And one of my panel members, who’s opinion I highly value, was giving me the “I”m so disappointed in you” look.  It was the most soul destroying look and I felt like the worst human being on the planet.  Seriously, I could have killed fluffy little kittens and felt better about myself. That was last year’s dream.

Well, this time I dreamed that I was on stage in front of my panel and my accompanist started playing the introduction to an aria I didn’t recognize.  But my panel said the piece was on my jury list and my accompanist said we had practiced it, but I couldn’t remember.  So I tried to sight-read it over his shoulder, which again, didn’t work out so well. When I woke up, I re-read over my jury repertoire list just to make sure and then went to the practise room the first chance I got.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised or even upset any more, considering the number of times this has happened, but I was down right depressed for a good 12 hours following that.

So, at 6:40 tomorrow evening, I’ll perform in von Kuster Hall for the very last time.  Hopefully the my nightmare scenarios will be kept strictly to my evidently over active imagination.  I’ll have to be double sure to avoid gum tomorrow.