Workin' and Shoppin' It!

Busy day today - My day consisted of three parts:

1. TRAINING - first order of business of the day was attending a free seminar on Musical Theater Audition Technique at The Actors Connection. I love free stuff -and this seminar was a good introduction to how things work at The AC since I had never attended anything offered by the before. The seminar was basically an introduction to a 4-week class being offered in audition technique, but I still managed to get a good amount of worthwhile information from just free class. The instructor spoke about examining the text of your songs and letting the story carry your voice. I liked this perspective. It's nothing that I hadn't heard before, but hearing it again has inspired me to find a voice teacher who will help me prepare audition pieces using this technique. Now I know specifically what to ask for from my instructor and I feel like this will save me time in discovering the process I need to go through in order to have more successful auditions. Acting through my songs is something that I have striven to do all along, however I haven't had someone watch and coach me in a while, so my hope is they'll set me straight & help me acquire the tools I need to book the job.

2. WORK - Day job calls. I headed into the job that pays my rent immediately following the seminar & put in some solid hours before moving onto my next gig.

3. PERFORMANCE
I left work and grabbed a cab to the Parkside Lounge, arriving just in the nick of time to perform my "Caba-raoke" set for Variety Underground. It was a good size crowd tonight & they seemed a friendly bunch. I was the last act of the night, so it was important to me that I didn't leave anyone with a bad taste in their mouth. With lyric sheets and karaoke CD in hand - I took the stage and grabbed the mic.

"Hi everyone," I said. "I'm kinda new to song writing, so I have a new song that I just wanted to try out in front of a group of people. It's a little on the longer side, but I have a lot of musical influences that I wanted to incorporate into my song, like Cher..."
The audience let out a laugh. (whew - they're with me.) I knew that everything would be fine from here on out.

Despite a couple of lyrical missteps and one minor microphone mishap, the act was surprisingly well received. I suddenly came to the realization that it has been quite a while since I've performed a solo act - and it felt really good. I think there is something worth exploring here and I think that with a little fine tuning and polishing, it could be something worth shopping around.

Of course I can't take full credit for having the idea to put this thing together. That honor goes to my adorable boyfriend. Without his constant encouragement and persistence I might never have done this at all. He came up with the name "Caba-raoke" too.

When I left the stage tonight I was on a comic high and took a moment before I could feel the ground beneath my feet again. Several people came up to me after the show telling me how much they enjoyed the act. One guy even asked if I had a website.
"A website? Not quite yet."
"So I should just keep an eye out for you then?"
"Check out my blog," I said with a smile.
...or if not, maybe he'll catch me on Broadway.