Cats! meow....

5. White Plains Performing Arts Center. Cats.

Today was awesome and I have pictures! Yay!
White Plains was our destination. A small suburb with city flare that lays about 40 minutes from our Harlem apartment. Sarah my roommate (en route stage manager) decided to accompany me up to White Plains to view the theatre, but mainly to have some Buffalo Wild Wings. So we headed down 125th to the Harlem Metro-North line and away we went!

Yay for transportation. I amused everyone by singing the 'Cat I'm a kitty cat' youtube song, and 'The Meow Mix' Song in multiple languages. Much to Sarah's dismay.

 Sarah so excited I'm taking her picture, she just wants her Parmesan Garlic Wings.

  

Yay! Time to eat! We arrived around 3:30. My audition wasn't until 6:30 so we appeased Sarah's wishes and ate our hearts out at Buffalo Wild Wings. Meow.

Sarah my Manager who multi-tasks VERY   well. Clearly too busy to even order.

Me, the star. Too cool to read the menu right side up.

And the nosh begins.....

 FRIED PICKLES! My first attempt and they're DELICIOUS!

After our delicious lunch, we decided to walk around main street and what not to kill some time. On our way we passed a Milk bar, because what town isn't complete without one? Especially when auditioning for Cats. Meow!

 Then we passed a castle and Sarah and I decided we will live here if we move to White Plains. Of course then we wandered into the Trump Towers and Lofts and we changed our minds!

Onto the audition! I stopped taking pictures at this point because I was getting ready to audition but I have a very apt and detailed description for you :)

So at the White Plains Performing Arts Center is a very nice venue in the middle of town surrounded by great restaurants and shops and a giant cinema. The theatre is a beautiful 400+ house with a medium sized stage and ample backstage space, but I digress.

The call was for non-equity singers who move, but I think they're really looking for triple threats because the show goes up in December so they need people who can learn fast. 

Well I was called around my time of 6:30 and went in to sing. I sang one of my go-to songs that has a good range to it and it went pretty well. I showed some fun character and sang pretty, even though the space was dead without much acoustic. Then I was asked to stay and dance, Yay! ... oh wait... uh oh.. Hahahaha. 

So after I changed, and "stretched" I amused the masses by meowing occasionally and talking to Bruce Jones. 

 I love Bruce. He's full of life, and silly and can sing his face off. He's too loud all the time but it makes life funny. Bruce had to run downstairs to the Target in the basement and buy dance clothes, yay for impromptu dancing!

So we all got on stage and learned a piece of the original choreography to the opening. It was rough at first but once I got the moves in my head I was fine. Since I'm not the most technical dancer I concentrated on personality and having really strong cat hands. Haha, I wanted to add in a lick here or there but there wasn't much wiggle room in the choreography. So we danced and danced and danced, and danced some more, all to the choreographers counting because the music wasn't functioning properly.

After they were sure we all had the choreography down, they split us into groups of 4. My group was 3rd to go and I started off in the front. I feel like I sold it really well and gave it my all. When we switched lines I didn't give it as much gusto so my ending was off a bit, but it was still full of personality.
We all finished dancing and that was that. 'Thank you and we'll be in touch!'
In my absence Sarah got a tour of the theatre from the artistic director and auditor himself and of course she put in a mention for me :) It's all about connections right?

So we headed back to the train and on our way. It was a long afternoon, but it was fun and luckily the train ran straight from White Plains to Harlem, EXPRESS! It's always a pleasant surprise when you get on a local train and it rides express, unless of course you need it to be local but that's an entirely different blog entry.
Until next time!

Ever Hopeful,
Jillian