part 4, Show Palace Theater

Well after we had our fabulous lunch with big bro,
Andre and I went to our perspective auditions, and they ended up being in the same studio just 2 doors apart.
So nothing real exciting to report about this audition. It was for a dinner theatre in florida. I love the FL. My first experience of it was when I worked at an internship at Disney World. made some great friends down there, who I've really only gotten to see once in 4 yrs. But maybe things will change. When I worked at Disney my VIP character was Eeyore, and I was a dancer in the Festival of the lion king show.
So the first group went in and like 15 mins into waiting, Andre comes strolling in, so I make him sign up with me, and we audition together. It was a weird jazz combination, where they threw things from no where. but we worked it out. Actually it was weird cause instead of going by our numbers, They were just picking certain groups of people to go together, well we get to the end, and he kind of didn't ask to see me, I almost thought I was not even in the runnings, but I was wrong he put me front and center for the last group of girls. So Andre and I made it past the cut, and they asked us to sing, now we were running late already to make it back to rehearsal, so I had to ask him, if he'd hear us sing first, and they were nice and we did. and ran to find the nearest subway,to catch the bus.


The Cursing Dilemma
Now we arrived to rehearsal like an hr late, oopsie!!
But it was really scary when the director calls me over in a real serious manner.
I thought I was going to get scolded about not being professional or something, But he says to me, I want you to do this scene. Wait, what?
Yeah so I was given another part to do in the show, Aaron the lawyer for the hunyak. great sure no problem, until I look it over.
Now for those that don't know, I am a man of faith, and though I might be questioning a lot of things, I still hold on to the morals and values I believe in. I really don't like swearing, and I try to encourage others to be creative and be colorful with their language in other ways. It's hard in the theater world when it comes to this, cause you are being paid to be a character, to act, not like yourself, but some one that you are portraying. and sometimes lots of roles call for harsh curse words to really understand the harsh demeanor of a person.
A while ago I asked my youth pastors wife what she did, cause she was in professional theater , and she had said that she deemed it ok to curse, but that she wouldn't say the Lords name in vain since that was a direct oder to not do. and so I have bee living by that.
Well I see the script and 3/5ths of my lines are accented with choice words, and wouldn't be perfect that they are all some form of the one thing I won't say. So I had to turn everything to damn,( sorry). gees lousie

part 3, Big Brother Broadway Star

As We were hanging around the city, I thought it would be awesome if we could actually see a Broadway star!, So I called my big brother James Lane to see if we could have lunch with him. James is in the new revival of the Broadway show, A CHORUS LINE.
A CHORUS LINE is actually the movie musical I saw my freshmen year of high school that made me want to do this whole music theater thing in the first place. Pretty cool hunh. This musical is awesome, it's all about the life of trying to get into a Broadway Show chorus, or the ensemble, which is exactly what I'm trying to do. And it's all about singing and dancing.
Praise the lord, it works out, and we meet him at the Alvin Ailey studios,(beautiful dance space by the way), and we go have lunch together.
Now the reason I call James my big bro, is because we have some significant same things in common, like having gone to Penn State, and singing in the same choir, and being in philly, and have been thru similar hard life situations. He has been a primary encouragement in what steps to take, and what things I should be doing to pursue this career, from a first hand perspective. He also is an example of how to stay spiritually connected in this biz, and constantly reminds me that it's ok to fall, as long as you get back up, and continue in the right direction.
We had a great time talkin, and being inspired by him, He is encouraging me,( along with every other theater friend), to move to NYC when I'm done here in the fall. And he ended his argument with a quote from his friends poetry,
" saying, and doing, are the most distant relatives in the family of self actualization". Yeah, ponder on that for a while.
I think the coolest thing happened as we were walking down the street getting ready to go our perspective ways, we get to the corner about to say good bye, and James shouts out, "Look, look, look, there's me!!!!" And starts "shoutin"(which is holy spirit filled church dancing) A metro public NYC bus drove by, with the side of it plastered with the Broadway show poster of A Chorus Line, Which he is right smack in the middle of. How awesome, self realization.

part 2, Bright Lights, Big City

So when Andre got to the studio, we left and headed uptown to hangout and be inspired by time square, Broadway, and the theatre district. Here's some pictures.
Of course we had to go by the theater that's doing CHICAGO! Where the delectable and beautiful Brenda Braxton, (my brown sugar), is Performing as Velma Kelley!

Part 1, Not Monkeying around

Yesterday morning,
I boarded the good ole Chinatown bus, and headed up NYC
to audition for Disney's musical Tarzan. Now I love this movie and the music is really heart connecting for me, laugh if you will, but I'm a dreamer, and have a childs heart. Even at Disney's Animal Kingdom, at Disney World, I would sneak over to the Tarzan rocks show on my lunch break, or in between my shows from Festival of the lion King, and watch the dancers and aerialists, and sometimes, I admit, I would leave crying.
I love to be inspired, and have my heart encouraged.
Anyway, so I get to the studio and I run into Oz, who I haven't seen since 2001, and I'm not sure from where I know him from, But it can only be from Ailey that summer, or Point Park Conservatory that fall. I think it's from the latter. That was cool, he had said that he had auditioned for them before, but didn't make it because he wasn't equity,( which is the actor's union), so since he was now, he was hopin to go far. Now as I looked around I was astonished at the other guys. They looked more like me, and some looked even bigger. I'm used to going in and seeing more of a variety of men at audtions, and airing more on the average to skinny type of guy, I usually stand out as one of the buff guys, here I was right in the mix.
As I prepared myself to warm up, I noticed that everyone else was warming up in ways I hadn't thought, everybody was upside down, on their hands. Hand stands, one arm walk overs, Capioera balances, hip hop holds, and other acrobatic stunts. Oh Boy! here we go. I don't have alot of those, not yet anyway. I do want to get some gymnastic training sooner or later.
Let me tell you a little about this auditioning life. When you aren't in the equity union, when you go to an equity call, you're doing what they call "crashing" the audition. Now you can only do broadway shows if you're equity, so the only way to get in is to crash, it's weird, but it's expected. They just have a seperate sign up for non union, and they see them after all the equity. When you go to these auditions, you never know if you're going to be seen or not, it's a gamble, you kind of consider it your job for the day to go to the audition. Well basically what ended up happening, was that they were in some kind of hurry, and were already having there callbacks at 1230. The audition started at 10, and they were taking an hr with 20 people at a time, and they had 53 equity people, so if you figure it out, I didn't make the time cut. SO I called Andre and told him that when he got there we were leaving. We both had other auditions later that day in the city, so it wasn't a total bust, well looks like I'm not going to be an ape anytime soon, oh well.

Chasing Cats, and loosing Cookie Monster

On Wednesday this past week, Andre and I took the China town bus and went to NYC. Andre is the other black in my show, the other one in the video( with the good hair and great smile). Here's a picture of him, I know it's kind of scandalise, but hey it's the one he sent me. So we decided to take a trip on our day off and audition for the tour of CATS. This as most of you know is a highly dancing musical, and I love this show. There's like a 25 min dance number for no reason, AWESOME! So of course as the day starts off, I'm late from trying to warm up in the gym, and almost miss the bus. As I was speedily walking I noticed that the main street toward cityhall was blocked off with a whole lot of caution tape, and there were cop cars every where. Now they were doing construction on this road, but I thought it odd there were Cops around, and as I slowed to pay more attention, I saw that people other philadelphians were perusing about, as I cross the street I see the remains and broken pieces of what used to be probably a motorized wheel chair right smack in the middle of the intersection.
I have no idea what happen.
Anyway, so we get to New York around 1:15pm and go straight to Chelsey Studios. This is where a good 3/5ths of all the auditions for anything happens. It's a great place, lots of rehearsals for Broadway, and tours and classes are here, and they have a desk bubblegum machine that gives you free peanut m&ms. I love this place! We sign up for a spot, ends up being 2:45pm. So I venture out uptown towards time square and go to Capezio headquarters to be my character shoes for Chicago. Black Suede ballroom shoes with split soles and a 2in Cuban heal. Yes!,
So 50 mins, and 4 miles later, I get back to Chelsey. Andre is sitting with a friend from his last gig, who is also there auditioning. He introduces me, "hey I know you" I say, and he remembers me, but doesn't know why, " You taught my Sesame Street Audition!"
Funny hunh. Ok a little background. Andre was in that tour of Sesame Street, that came here to philly , where I auditioned at. But he quit the tour. His friend says to me, " what are you doing here, you said you weren't available til September, WE WANTED TO HIRE YOU!"
Um excuse me? SO yeah found out that this guy was trying to give me hints through out the audition that told me they were looking for an immediate replacement( instead of the fall contracts which they advertised). I guess I'm not that bright, or he is just a really bad communicator. hahaha. So I jokingly said Cookie Monster, and he said yeah that's who'd I'd be. So, I miss that one, now I know to put my availability for as soon as possible on my audition sheets. Hey you live and learn. But those guys are both sure that I'll get a call for the fall show.
Hey God has the right timing for me, I just gots to do my thing and be patient.
By the way, The CATS audition was great, I made it past the dance cut, and sang my song, and now they have me on file. cool. It's a good casting company to be on file for, This is the same company that did CARMEN,( I'll tell those that don't know about that later.) So we keep on truckin, Stay tuned these next couple weeks are going to get BIZZZEY!


This Cats names is alonzo, Alfonso,Alonzo, hey!

Green tights, a disenchanted donkey rider, and a revolution

So today, I went to Walnut Street Theatre, here in philly for a singers call for their fall season. Now I can carry a nice tune, and God has blessed me with a voice for giving him glory, which really only shines thru when The holy Spirit takes over and I'm singin up 3 octaves than I should be.( I love my Falsetto). But, not enough for me to go to a singers call. The theater world is broken up like that, dancer/singer, singer/actor, singer/dancer. Now I go to the dancer/singer calls, It's all in what you have to do first. So this means I would go and dance, and if they keep me from dancing, I get to sing my song.
Anyway, so I head over to the Nut, Hoping that they will even see me, this was an EPA appointment only call, and since I am only an EMC. They could've told me to get lost. But Praise God they didn't and they were seeing non equity folks. I was actually lucky I got there right before their lunch break, the last one in.
SO, I go in feeling kind of good, cause I got my professional headshots reprinted, and did some work on my resume, and touched up my music, so I felt more professional, and I had a cute outfit on.(which by the way, I got to rehearsal tonight and saw that the costumer had the same shirt on, I took it as more of a compliment that great minds think alike, hey it's all in the attitude). Anyway, so I ask if the pianist can play my 2 song a key lower, and he can't oh well, I thought, I've sang it that high before. I sing my first song fine, nice sweet, "Can't help lovin dat gal of mine" Gershwin, changed the gender. I was happy despite my cold it went well, only to have it all thwarted by the horrible noise that followed. Man let me tell you it was pretty bad. I was crackin left and right, Man my flem was gettin in the way, I wasn't warmed up like I thought, and I hadn't sung this song in that key in a while. I had to over compensate thru my acting. I had already started and I couldn't not finish the song, Oh how I just wanted to stop the pain. After I sang she says, "so you're primarily a dancer." hahaha, yes I am, and then asked if I could read music, I'm glad I've been in a choir half my life.
Now the reason it was a singers call, is because 2 of the musicals they're doing are Man of Lamancha, and Les Miz. Straight hardcore classic singing musicals. But Both very Guy heavy. Now I was really going in there for Peter Pan, cause that's also guy heavy, and has all the dancing, but you always say you're auditioning for everything to get in, and that you will do basically what ever they want. Now you may be asking why didn't I just go to the dance call, well there is no call, you have to make it thru this cut to be seen for dancing.
My 2 friends, Kelly,and Andre fellow cast members from Chicago also sang today. Kelly is one of our leads, and she did 2 shows at the Nut this past fall, so she knows the casting manager, so she told me that she kind of gave Andre and I a shout out. God please let that help.
(oh Andre is the other black guy in the video, with the hair and great smile) So, please keep thinking those happy thoughts, Ask God to send some pixie dust my way, And hopefully I'll be a lost boy, pirate,prisoner,and revolutionary.

Little teazer

Hey guys,
if you look to the left there is a short little video of Us rehearsing.
It's fun, check it out, hopefully it will make you want to see the show.

If I wasn't so dark you'd be able to see more of me,

Darn the sweetness of Dark Cocoa!

The question? and Down stage center!

Well, I have now finished my first week of rehearsals, And let me just say I love this musical! What is really cool about this whole experience is that I feel like a superstar. Since the production team wanted me to do the show so much, they are always asking how everything is going, and have been so willing to help me out when I need it, and let me just say that it humbles me so greatly. Now I feel obligated to be as professional as I can be, and to work as hard as I can for them. and It's always nice to feel wanted, and a valuable part of something,(especially in this business of constant rejection). The costumer asked me if I was comfortable showing my stomach in the show, either like the guy in the picture with a vest, or a small cut off shirt, and when I slightly protested, he said why not you did it for Media.( the last show I was in there was a dance number where the only thing the men had on was a rag of material fastened in some way around our pelvis)

The first dance we learned was the press conference rag,( if you've seen the movie it's the number where the reporters are marionette dolls.) Talk about a work out! the whole thing is down on chairs, and half of the choreography is kicking of some sort, to the point where we actually grab each others arms and do a sitting Rockette kick line. It's so intense that we end up grabbing our chairs and doing a doubled legged kick line. Wow, talk about feeling the burn. I had done a pretty intense workout in the gym friday, with some heavy abs stuff, ( you know trying to get ready to have them be protruding), so adding on this dance routine has placed me in a position to not be able to work on my stomach for 4 days, and it still hurts to stretch out my stomach. man I'm gonna be freakin sexy after this show! Please pray for the energy and strength to continue to do well.

I think the thing that made me feel awesome this week, was when I found out that I open the show, that's right The lights come up on me with 1 trumpet playing, and me dancing center stage, and then I bring everyone else in. I have not felt this awesome in a while. But you'd better believe every chance I get I'm in a mirror working on my choreography. We also learned the famous opener "all that jazz", and I end the number in the front slamming my crotch down into a split for the final pose. So Hot! Man I love the dancing in this musical!