Typed IN?!?!?!?

So I'm finally starting to fall into a routine. I'm finished training at my new job. I start on Friday as an official employee! I will be working Friday-Monday and auditioning Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I'm trying to average four to five auditions a week. I feel that if I can keep this up, something is bound to work out eventually... right??? (*fingers crossed*)

I've been in the city for a month now. Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:15 AM and went to the Actor's Equity building to stand in line for Agents Access Auditions. About once a month some agents come to AEA and we get to audition for them. They only sign up 50 auditionees and 50 alternates. I was 4th in line. I froze along with my new actor friends for two hours. Equity is nice enough to have "winter hours" when it's cold. They let us in at 7:30 and then we get to wait the reminder of the time in the warmth of the lounge. So sign up was at 8:30, then I went home and crashed before the audition that night. We were supposed to present our strengths so I sang "Old-Fashioned Love Story". I think it went well!

Today I had two auditions. One was this afternoon, an appointment for TriArts Sharon Playhouse, they are doing Hairspray. Another was this morning for the 2nd National Tour of Wicked.

Just in case anyone reads this blog and maybe doesn't know all of the audition terminology, I'm going to break it down here... If you know it, just scroll down.

There are two types of Equity auditions: EPA- Equity Principal Audition, ECC- Equity Chorus Call.

For an EPA, members arrive early the day of the audition and wait in line to sign up for an audition time. You can sign up for any time that day, which is great if you want to sign up for specific times because of work or other things. Then you just come back 10 minutes before your audition time. This is for men and women.

For an ECC, members are able to sign up on a list that is posted a week before at the Equity office. This is broken up by Males and Females: Singers who Dance and Dancers who Sing. On the day of the audition, members go to the holding room 30 minutes before the audition time. The list is read. Sometimes the list could have 400 people on it. Not all of those girls show up or some people sign their friends up so one girl's name could be on the list 3 times. If you aren't there when your name is called, you have to get to the end of the line of the women who didn't sign up before then.

At an ECC, there is something called "typing". This happens when there are lots of ladies there and the casting directors don't want to waste their time or yours. A lot of the time they are looking for something very specific (i.e. ethnic girls... tall, lanky girls... etc.) So they take you in the room with 20 other girls. You stand there in front of them. The accompanist plays a little diddy on the piano and they ask you to talk amongst yourselves. At this point the people at the table go through your headshots, they might look at you as well, and make a stack of who they want to hear sing and who they don't want to hear sing. (The girl next to me said one time she was in the ladies room when her group went in and she got 'typed in' even though she wasn't even in the room. THEY LITERALLY JUST LOOK AT HEADSHOTS SOMETIMES.)

So... after all that explanation... they were typing for Wicked today. And I was thinking "Shit. I just want them to hear me sing." And wouldn't you know..... I GOT TYPED IN! That was a very small, but exciting victory for me. It was the first time I got typed in. It tells me that just because my body type may be different doesn't mean I won't be needed. I was so excited! I sang for them, and I think it went well! Regardless, I got to sing! It was a good day!!