Lessons for a Broadway Wannabe

Dear Teenage Adrienne,

When you were younger and dreaming of Broadway, I don’t think anyone around you actually thought it would happen. According to Mom and Dad, theatre was a just nice hobby. Plus, you were never the big star as a kid or in high school, so it just seemed like a pipe dream of yours. But it did happen. And when I think about how you got from those dreams to performing as a Radio City Rockette or in the original Broadway cast of The Producers, I’m still kind of amazed.

Your training during high school was sporadic, but when you go to Barnard College, you will study classical voice and finally get to dance every day. You have some exciting moments in musical theatre—playing Rizzo in Grease and Mama Morton in Chicago—but you also are in the ensembles of The Wiz and Evita. You will audition for Tommy Tune at an open call where you awkwardly wear ballet black to all the other dancers’ showgirl chic. You will catch a taste of professional life, getting hired for the ensemble with the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players at Symphony Space and assisting your ballet teacher with the choreography. Even though you plan to go to graduate school, you cannot quite give up the idea of Broadway. So you make a plan to live in NYC, work as a nanny, and spend a year auditioning. If you don’t land any jobs in one year, you will agree to let it go. Fantastically, you will start to book shows before you graduate college and then spend a year on the road with The Will Rogers’ Follies—the very Tommy Tune show where you had embarrassed yourself in your first Broadway audition.

In many ways, your naivete has made it all seem possible. You had no idea that other kids came to NYC with so much training under their belts. But you did not wait around either. You have always hustled and been a go-getter. You learned so much from your successes and your failures that I would never want to change how you went about things. Still, I can extrapolate some pretty big lessons— some of which are specifically about a career in theatre and others which are just lessons in living. Some of these are so obvious, but maybe you just needed to live through it to really believe them.

1. It is not easy.
   There is the rejection, of course, but also so much uncertainty, especially all those times you auditioned, only to realize you didn’t get cast when you heard of others who did. You had to figure out the implicit ways that certain people in your dance class always got put in the front row, and then understand which styles of dance you did best and what classes you could go to and be chosen for the front row. Then the financial instability. How do you balance a “jobby job” (as I lovingly call it) with the job of auditioning and also finding the flexibility to leave town when you are cast? And over everything is the irregular lifestyle. You will miss so many life events—so many graduations and weddings. And when you found your forever partner, compromise was the name of the game.

   Be prepared to work hard. Time and money are fixed entities, and training is expensive. It’s no fun to be broke, but you can also be frugal and have fabulous experiences. I wanted to do it all, but sometimes you have to pick and choose. I couldn’t afford a vocal coach AND an audition workshop AND multiple dance classes in the same week. There are only 24 hours in the day and life requires balance to be sustainable.

2. Attitude counts.
   This you knew, and luckily, it is a core part of who you are. I wonder if it happened more often than you knew, but there was the time at the callback for The Producers when you were out in the hallway for a long time and wound up chatting with an older man. He had something to do with running the audition, you just didn’t know what. You completely hit it off, and the nerves were pretty calm by the time you finally went into the audition room. As you left, he informed you he was Jeff Johnson of the casting directors Johnson & Liff.

3. You never know what you will learn.
   When I look back on all the shows I did, one of my favorite productions was one of my earliest: a production of A Chorus Line, directed and choreographed by the late great Tony Stevens, who was part of the original tape sessions but left ACL to help Bob Fosse on Chicago. This was a summer stock production at Theatre-by-the-Sea in Rhode Island, which we lovingly called “Theatre-for-Free” due to our tiny paychecks. I was nonequity, playing Bebe amid a mixed company of talented gypsies and neophytes. I remember being terrified at the very first rehearsal that I wasn’t good enough, and slowly growing confident sitting around in a circle, talking about our love for dance and our own stories before I even knew that was how A Chorus Line had come to be.

   I also learned so much from the four shows I did in rotation one summer season with Seaside Music Theater in Daytona Beach, FL. Although I was again paid very little as a nonunion performer, there was an amazing thirty-piece orchestra that supported our shows, from Sweeney Todd to Crazy for You. The costume department was also incredible, and our costumes were all made specifically for us, with fittings in muslin and hats created by the milliner; these made me feel so professional.

   I joined Actors’ Equity in my early twenties, but the first years of nonunion shows were both my training ground and where I met many fellow performers with whom I would travel alongside through auditioning and training.

4. Keep educating yourself.
   Learn about both the history of theatre and the craft. I did not know the history of musical theatre because I did not matriculate through any formal program. But I started teaching myself, borrowing cassettes from the NYPL and reading plays and history books, learning about casting directors and directors, and seeing as many shows as I could afford, usually sitting all the way in the back row or roughing it in standing room. I tried to fill in the gaps, taking classes when I could afford them, and sometimes going to auditions for shows I knew I was less interested in just so I could practice new songs. My naivete may have shielded me from knowing how difficult the career choice would be, but it wasn’t cute when I didn’t know things about the shows I was auditioning for or performing in. Do your homework.

5. Your peers are your future employers, coworkers, and teachers.
   Some people find success quickly, or find their niche as a director or choreographer, and they will have some influence over your future jobs. Those friends who are dance captains may move into assistant choreographers or continue to direct the show in other venues [End Page E-22] and countries. Some friends will direct at regional theatres or become casting directors. Sometimes these are side jobs, and other times it becomes their primary jobs. People who work well together like to keep working with the same people.

6. Auditioning is a skill, and it is different from performing.
   If you do not have the good fortune of being in a program that teaches you how to audition, then the best way to learn is to just start auditioning. Some auditions have little to do with skill and you are not cut because someone simply finds you likeable or interesting. In addition, horrible auditions have much to teach you, like the time you learned so much about type after walking into sing for West Side Story to hear “Hello, Anita!!” only to have to say, “Actually, I prepared a song for Maria.” Right . . . not too many Marias are 5’10”. There are other ways to get in front of working professionals as well. Showing up to dance classes taught by working choreographers and volunteering for fundraisers like the Easter Bonnet Competition are part of the networking at that level. It was in those classes with Chet Walker that you realized there was an invited group working on what would become Fosse. Working with Jerry Mitchell in Broadway Bares was like an extended audition.

7. Broadway does not equal success or happiness.
   As an educator, this is maybe the most important thing I teach. I did land that Broadway job. I did love it and I did learn an incredible amount. But I also stayed in it for four years, and by the time I left, I was craving a creative outlet. It is important to constantly reassess what you want, what makes you happy, and what is most fulfilling. There are many ways to have a fulfilling life in theatre that does not revolve around Broadway or even NYC.

8. Don’t wait to be cast. Go make something.
   Doing this helps relieve the sense of hopelessness that comes from waiting around for other people to cast you and affirm that you are “good enough.” You are. It also keeps your creative fires burning. Get a group of friends to put on a showcase or a play. Invite agents and industry people to come. Or just do it for the growth and learning experience. I worked with a talented group of actors from my acting class with Larry Singer to produce and put on John Patrick Shanley’s play Four Dogs and a Bone, a departure from my resume of musical theatre. It was another way of filling in the holes in my own skillset.

9. Comparison is the thief of joy.
   Ugh, a cliché, but soooo true. You are auditioning with people who look similar and are vying for the same part. It is very easy to go down the “why them and not me?” road. There is no joy in this. Learn to assess yourself independently and constructively. I finally learned to create goals for my auditions that had nothing to do with landing the job, so that I could think critically about my audition and could learn from it. I’ll never know why I kept getting called back to audition for Cats but never was cast. But something was going well, because I auditioned six or seven times.

10. Learn to be authentically yourself in the room.
    This is the #1 asset for auditioning. Knowing yourself, what makes you happy, and what you bring into the room is not only incredibly healthy, but it also allows you to have a captivating sense of confidence and gets the folks in the room interested in YOU.

Ah, younger Adrienne. You will not burst onto the Broadway scene but instead meander there, working in many regional theatres, plus national and European tours. Each show will teach you something about performing, professionalism, taking care of your instrument, networking with others, and discovering your strengths. The audition for The Producers always stands out because it was when you were most authentically yourself and not trying to be whatever you imagine they wanted. It was a gift to do that show, to be so challenged as a swing covering nine parts, and to be part of a truly glorious experience when a new show comes together and makes magic.

Get ready. It’s harder than you thought, but better too.

Love,

Your older, wiser, and more arthritic self.