The Whitest Calypso in the Land....

[gwendolyngrace]

Couple auditions in the last couple days. One was for a two-person play and I don't expect to get cast - not that I didn't audition well, but she'll probably go with someone younger and smaller given her likely male actor (though... to be fair there was only one guy the night I auditioned and I don't know about the other guys who might have auditioned).

Tonight was for Seussical with a really fun choreography and OMG lots of kids! There were 8 adults auditioning for all the adult roles and about 15 kids all going for JoJo (although it could be some of the older kids will be cast in other roles). I don't know whether they don't have a musical director or if the director just wanted an accompanist for the audition process, but they had an accompanist come in... except. Most of us wound up singing a capella. But before we sang the 16 bars we had all prepared, they wanted us to all sing the same thing (to get a baseline of vocal quality, I guess). She had us all learn the "Banana Boat Song" (which the few of us over the age of 30 already knew)... but she also played it in strict time and with strict enunciation of the words ("Daylight come and me want to go home" instead of "Daylight come an' me wan'go home"). It was without a doubt the whitest rendition of Harry Belafonte ever. I don't think it could have been more uptight had we actually sung "Deo Gracias Anglia" instead.

Anyway. It was pretty funny. If it hadn't been so painful.

(In other news, I bought pants for $2 at Penney's yesterday. Seriously. $2! Can't beat it with a stick.)

Comments

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Did they mean to set you a very difficult test when they asked for you to un-calypso the Banana Boat? Or were they just oblivious? And was it the accompanist or the director who asked for it sung that way? I can't tell if it was a measure of your chops and your ability to take direction or... just dumb.

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

As far as I could tell, it had nothing to do with the director. The accompanist couldn't get there early, so they read the kids, then danced everyone, *then* did the music. And from what little she could keep up with when it came to playing people's individual selections, I think the Banana Boat was about all the accompanist could handle playing.

As for the un-Calypsoing, well, I *didn't* un-Calypso it when I sang it solo. I didn't break rhythm, but I definitely gave it more attitude (because, hello, Dr. Seuss? Is anything but straight-laced). It was just dumb. Not an entirely useless exercise, because in pairs, anyway, it demonstrated people's ability to pick a harmony and stick to it, and it made everyone sing exactly the same thing, which does give the director an idea of voice quality. But still. It was dumb.