RELEASE

My auditioning adventures have brought a brand new and wonderful friendship: Karen

We met a couple of weeks ago and have been bumping into each other ever since then.  Not only is she a fierce singer, belting minds away in her mezzo glory, but more importantly she is such a fun and positive person (her card’s tagline is “Everything is going to be alright.”). While the auditioning realm could be really intense and daunting, Karen’s joy and bright being calms me, giving me the ability to step away from all the possible fears, which are at the ready to break me down any moment I let them in. 

This past Monday I was auditioning for a production of RENT, and Karen was there early waiting for the girl’s call later that afternoon. They were luckily seeing non-equity, so I got my 16 bars of a pop song together. I was singing one of the solos that I sang with my a cappella group back at Middlebury, “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay. Now, I have used this once before for at an audition, and I knew after that one I just needed to have fun with the song, not feel like I needed to interpret every word as a story. 

I went in and sang it. I got all the notes, techniqued the crap out of it, and it was so boring. I might as well have been yawning myself as I sang. The grit needed for this show was no where to be found in my rock song; it was pretty, and being only pretty doesn’t get you anywhere. 

Karen had waited outside the room and was there to catch my arm as I came out, walking back with me to our chairs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t upset about my performance. I hit the notes and was on pitch finding the ping of my upper register. But the essence of rawness and grit that RENT is so known for was absent in my performance. Karen was agreeing with everything I was saying, and I was so grateful to have someone to talk frankly with about an audition, to get some sort of feedback. 

Immediately it was apparent that I was trying too hard and thinking about it all way too much. From Karen I was seeing that I just need to let go. 

Karen was going to another audition after her RENT one, an Off-Broadway drama, and she said that I should come with her 'cause it called for a scruffy 20-year-old... Luckily, I hadn’t shaved that day. :-) After a divine lunch of McDonald’s, we booked it over to the theater holding auditions to look over the sides. As I was getting there, I realized I had just used my last headshot that morning and would need another one for this cold reading. Leaving my bag with Karen at the theater, I ran to the nearest STAPLES with my photo CD, and got some more prints quickly and scooted back to the theater. I get there, and ask the box office manager if he has a stapler and pair of scissors that I could borrow to put my headshot and resume together.

“They have those at STAPLES...”

So, back to STAPLES I went! And they didn’t have them, so I quickly snatched the stapler off the counter while the gal’s back was turned. It was then that I realized that the headshots were printed on 8.5 x 11 paper, not 8 x 10. But at the point I just let it be, didn’t trim it down to the preferred 8 x 10 version, and slid right in before being asked to go in. 

With a quick look at the sides, I went in and read. The idea I was holding onto was that many times I am better being thrown into situations on stage. I remember being in rehearsal for After Mrs. Rochester at Middlebury my junior year. That was the semester I was finishing up my swimming season, taking three classes, and rehearsing three different shows that all went up different weekends of April. I had stretched myself way too thin, and would often sleep in the aisle of Wright Theater between my scenes. I will always remember one time when I was supposed to be onstage, and was just passed out on the floor. Immediately, the stage manager and Vanessa (my director) hurriedly woke me to get onstage for the scene. Flustered and still half asleep I jumped up there and did my scene, and promptly left after the scene feeling silly and still a bit lost. 

After the run, Vanessa said, “That was one of the best times you’ve done that scene Schuyler.” I had to just let go and not think about it. By being caught off guard and quickly rushed up onto the stage, I wasn’t given the chance to over-think what I had to do, how I had to have my “straight-man walk”, how I had to perform with an accent, how I had to be an active part of the scene. When I removed the unnecessary preparation, when I just threw myself into the character and scene, not thinking about the tools I had used to create him, I in turn had a better performance. 

So that’s what I tried here during this cold-reading. I threw myself in. I let the words infuse the character from within; I didn’t lean on or expect myself to bring this character to life. 

It was so freeing. Do I feel I nailed it, no. But I don’t care about that. I felt I had found some really great moments and had fun just going in to do something completely different from a 16 bar phrase or dance combination. I just let loose and fell into this forward, crude character, relishing in the joy of it all.

Later, Karen and I went to a Starbucks and watched some of the footage from my cabaret at Middlebury. I told her early on that I wanted any criticism she had, anything to make my performance better in terms of the actual cabaret as well as my auditioning. She had SO MANY wonderful things to say and give me to work on. I received a bunch of notes about my physicality while I sing; I need to commit to whatever I feel naturally coming from within. She was seeing my core feel a physical action as I sang, and then in return I immediately second-guessed the natural urge, resulting in a partially committed physical action in accordance with the true impulse. As she was giving me these ideas, I immediately thought of Stephanie J. Block, who I have watched on YouTube a bunch. She does an amazing job of being unapologetic with her physical choices while singing, and I feel I can learn a lot from her.

When it all came down to it, Karen was seeing that I needed to hone into the vulnerabilities of the characters - as well as my own - and to stop controlling my emotions. That rang so true with me. I have to plunge into each piece, into each character and let it happen, just like I did that day during After Mrs. Rochester rehearsal. 

I have to stop thinking so much. When I’m over-thinking, over-analyzing every note and every possible motion, it is then that I become a restricted robot singing some pretty notes. 

JUST LET GO AND LET IT HAPPEN! RELEASE!

So now it’s about releasing. For my upcoming auditions this week as well as the third installment of “Another Staged Experience” (Guilford Congregational Church on the Green at 4:00 this Sunday, February 27th) I am going to let go, planting myself into the words I’m singing, letting them infuse my whole being. 

GERONIMO!


p.s. I would like to thank Todd Langstaff for following my blog. I guess I forgot to "personally" thank him on Facebook the other time. :-) Hahahaha! But really though, thank you everyone who is reading and following me; it means so much.