Case of the Bad Audition

I finally know what it's like to be an auditionee a la Singapore Idol.

We thought we had arrived on time for the DEP Audition at ACJC this morning, but Beverly and I ended up being number 21 and 22 respectively, on the list of 28 auditionees.

All started off pretty well (other than the fact that my nerves were killing me, and I was releasing more than my usual amount of flatulence - that's what happens when I'm nervous, you see). We were led into a room where we had to do warm ups - vocal and physical with the choir teacher-in-charge (a funny little man) and an MEP teacher (a lady with a bad sorethroat). Then came the first shock of the day: we were told that after the group warm up, when we returned to the waiting room, each one of us had to come in separately and sing a song for them - a voice audition. I nearly keeled over and died when I heard that, because seriously, VOICE audition?? Like a singing audition?? It's not as if I wanted to join choir!

My turn came, and due to my complete lack of knowledge where the latest songs are concerned, I had no choice but to sing...yes, you guessed it - the school song. Now, that's actually not too bad because you really can't go all that wrong with your school song (unless you're like some of the other auditionees who forgot the lyrics of their school song by the time they reached the second verse. One even had to sing her school song in 'na-na-na' because she couldn't remember the freaking words, haha!). This is the first time I realised my singing voice is in fact mid to low range when I have to project, but it sure wasn't the first time I discovered that I have utter lack of what one would safely call 'a singing voice'. They cut me off on the school song the first time I sang, asking if I could start a little higher. So I did. Then they cut me off again, and asked if I could go even higher than that (think high 'laaaaa' just an octave short of breaking glass). Choiceless, I did as I was told - and probably nearly burst their eardrums in the process. The start of the school song was alright, but by the end, I think I had totally mauled it. I could tell that my pitching was totally off, and my high notes were all crackly and, to be honest? Just plain gross. I was so sheepish and completely embarrassed for simulating a bad Singapore Idol audition, then I apologised more than once, only to have the poor choir teacher-in-charge assure me that he was still alive with a meek "it's okay, it's okay". Oh, I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury myself right there and then. Why can't people understand that I canNOT sing, especially anything high? And it didn't stop there, because then they wanted to test my range. HELP. I had to do this 'na-na-na-na-na-na- na' thing going down the keys, then up. Down was alright, but I killed the going up - you know what, they probably just think I'm half a man or something (which is really fine by me). Finally, they did something quite similar to music exams, where they play four notes and I had to sing it back. Here's how it went: first note - alright! Second note - yup! Third note - er... Fourth note - Um, Lesley? If you didn't notice, we didn't exactly play that note...or anything that even sounded close to it. Don't mean to be rude, but do you even have EARS? I began to doubt too whether or not I had the ability to hear, because after nailing the first and second note, the third and fourth were so completely not what the lady played on her keyboard. This was by far the worst part. Added to the fact that prior to my starting to sing, I had been asked about music background, and I had told them I was a Grade7 in Piano, forgetting to add the leetle iddy biddy piece of information that I had nearly failed my aural test in the last exam. Anyhow, I'm just glad that Bev went AFTER me and not BEFORE me for the voice audition, for reasons I'm sure all of us are absolutely one hundred percent clear on. Do NOT make me elaborate.

As for the acting part of the audition, that was a separate thing. Auditionee number 1 went in at about 9am...Auditionee number 7 at about 10.30am. Uh huh, and Bev and I were 21 and 22. We had to sit for hours and hours in the waiting room, freaking out first, then getting bored, then getting hungry, then getting anxious to hurry up and get it over and done with so that we could dash home (in my case) and for an exco prom meeting (in Bev's case) asap.

I finally got called and led to the Audition room around 1 something in the afternoon. By then, the nervousness was not as bad as it had been that morning, and I was just thinking of how wonderful life would be once all this torture was over.

In the room, I was asked to sit on a solitary chair in the middle of the room, facing two teachers and a video camera. First, I had to introduce myself to the video camera. Then I had to do the Contemporary Women's Piece (an extract from Dreams of Anne Frank by Bernard Kops) and then the Classical one (an extract from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmund Rostand, translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess). Finally, they said they would ask me some questions about myself.

I expected that I would forget some lines, having only memorised the scripts yesterday, and true enough, I did. The nerves didn't help either. Anne Frank went pretty alright, but not so for Cyrano de Bergerac. For this piece, we had to take on the role of Roxanne, this being the part where she expresses her heartfelt adoration for a "handsome devil", Christian de Neuvillette. The very nice teacher stopped me a couple of lines into this script, and asked me what I thought Roxanne's feelings were. So I said something about being in love and wanting her man to love her back, to which the teacher asked if I could start reading again, this time sounding more like I was in love. I was quite embarrassed, but it's not as if I can be blamed for a total lack of experience in this aspect, so following her advice to 'put a smile in my voice' and read 'with more passion', I started again, and this time I suppose it went fine. Never knew there would be such obvious advantages if perhaps, I had in my mind, someone to be Christian de Neuvillette. Pity I don't know any "handsome devils". Haha!

Asking of questions was nearly exactly like having an English oral exam, conversation section. I was asked whether I preferred dance or drama (since in my audition form I had given information on my dance/music/theatre background) and why. Then about my L1R5 (maybe they want to know how much a chance there is of my staying on in AC after the O level results are released?) and what subject combination I was eyeing in JC.

Well, when the audition was finally over, I was SO HAPPY! It's been weighing on my mind throughout the O's and even after; the reason why I wasn't completely thrilled after History on Friday, and now it's DONE! I feel so much free-er now, even though there's still lots of other important things to be done this holidays, but hey! Anything beats an audition (I just can't fathom the mind of a Singapore Idol auditionee, especially the bad ones).

News to make the day even happier (for the two of us, that is), is that Beverly and I made it through the auditions, so Theatre Studies/Drama Elective, here we come! It's really all thanks to God for guiding us each and every step of the way (: Now it's one step closer to ACSian Theatre...and a tired and hectic JC life for the next two years.

Er,

Yay!

I think.