Auditioning Is Scary

I wonder how Victor Hugo would feel about his behemoth of a novel, Les Miserables, becoming a musical. Would he smile at the script, fondly tapping his foot along with the music of the orchestra? Would he feel that squeezing his many words into a four-hour performance is an injustice? Would he shed a tear while witnessing Val Jeans’s transformation, his heart soaring with the notes? I don’t know.

What I do know is that in less than a day I will be auditioning for the role of Enjolras, the young French revolutionary birthed from Hugo’s imagination. He is the young, idealistic martyr that is all but required in novels such as Les Mis. In a story full of allusions to Christ, Enjorlas perfectly fulfills the words of the messiah, “ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

The last time I auditioned for a musical, I was a senior in high school, and the show was Little Shop Of Horrors.  I was the voice of Audrey 2, a man-eating plant plotting world domination. Needless to say, this makes for quite a tonal shift in material. And though my voice was well suited for the bass/baritone venus flytrap, Enjolras’s high baritone/tenor range has been a little bit more of a strain on my vocal chords.

“Try to imagine your vocal chords as a pipe, starting in your diaphragm and ending with your mouth. Now imagine your voice is paint, filling your diaphragm. Shoot your voice out from your diaphragm, through your mouth, and paint the ceiling!”

This is actual advice I received from a musical theatre major. I can’t make this stuff up. Sometimes, I really question my decision to get a major in this business.

But it’s not all bad. I’ve gotten more practical advice from the vocal instructor who has taught me at home, and while I still haven’t been able to nail the last note of the measure I am required to sing for callbacks, I’m hoping I’ll get there with the help of the theatre/musical theatre majors I am soon to be surrounded by.

On the plane my heart begins to pound. I haven’t flown in almost two years, and I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like. As we ascend, every sound is the plane falling apart, and any turbulence is a sure sign we are falling out of the sky. I realize I have forgotten to buy gum. I look around at my fellow passengers and begin to conjure up biographies for each of them, hypothesizing who will miss them when they are gone.  I think of the movie Flight and hope my pilot is as skilled as Denzel Washington on drugs. I have to mentally slap myself to snap out of it.  When did I become so melodramatic? Maybe this theatre thing is the right decision after all.

The flight to DFW is just over an hour. I had forgotten how large the airport is. Being in an airport has always given me a stupid sense of superiority, as if the high school band members, businessmen, and vacationers flying around the world achieve greater heights both literally and personally, in terms of fulfillment. And yet the men and women in uniform always remind me that some people just want to fly home.

I Skype my girlfriend. She talks about her day. I do my best to listen, and avoid being distracted by thoughts of the audition and fear of missing my flight. She tells me about a tense conversation she had with friends in a theatre class. The topic was homosexuality. I think of the news that Jason Collins has come out, the first NBA player to do so publicly. I consider the high school stigma that theatre is “for faggots” as one jock back home so eloquently put it. I can’t help but feel sorry for Collins, because I have a nagging feeling that there are quite a few professional athletes who are still very much high school jocks. The call to board is announced and I say a rushed goodbye.

The plane to Abilene is the smallest I’ve ever been on. At the maximum, I would say it holds maybe thirty people. I fight the urge to rehearse my song out loud, and settle for humming instead. The woman sitting across the aisle shoots quick glances my way. I continue humming. Thankfully the flight is only thirty minutes long.

Some friends pick me up from the tiny Abilene airport. Two girls I went to high school with attend ACU, so there are smiles and hugs. We do what every Texas college student feels the urge to do late at night; we go to Whataburger.

At ACU we pull up to the theatre building and head up to the practice rooms. Almost every room is filled; various songs and vocal warm ups permeate the hallway. On the way over I have been informed that I must learn the bass part of a harmony for auditions as well. Much of the rest of the night is spent trying to get it down. In my limited experience, theatre majors are masters of procrastination, so I’m not alone in my desperation to learn the music. There are at least twelve of us crowded into a room that is maybe six feet by six feet. It is hot and difficult to breathe. I am asked to sing my part.

“La Marque is dead. La Marque, his death is the hour of fate!”

Contrary to popular belief, theatrical types still get nervous. And I am very nervous as I sing to a room full of people I haven’t met, most of whom are less then five feet from my face. Of course it’s nerve-wracking. I choke on the last note. I receive praise from a few of the students, but in a room full of actors you can never know who’s telling the truth.

I meet up with an acting major named Matt Silar, who happens to be auditioning for the same role. I am pleasantly surprised when he genuinely offers to help me, and gives some practical tips and reassurance. Both of us are acting majors, not musical theatre majors. Auditioning for a musical has us feeling like fish in uncomfortable waters.

A little before 1 a.m. we head back to the dorms. I crawl into a sleeping bag in a hot, stuffy dorm room, and try not to think about the congestion I feel building up in my nose, or that note I still haven’t hit. Instead, I think about both at once and fall slowly into sleep.

The next day after lunch, I’m back to trying to find my niche in the harmony. This is exceedingly difficult, as I had spent a lot of time learning the melody, which is what Enjolras would sing. Muscle memory is not easily rewritten. I take some time to rehearse my own part again and before I know it the time has come for callbacks.

“The time is here! Let us welcome it gladly with courage and cheer!”

If only I had the same confidence as my prospective character.  Around fifty students crowd the stage, split into four groups; bass, tenor, alto, and soprano. Four people go up at a time, one from each group, and each sings their part as the pianist plays. I am straining to hear the bass but not having much success. A few of us attempt to quietly find the notes and sing along in muted voices, but a 6 foot 2 upperclassman shoots us a knowing glance and shakes his head, effectively shutting us up. I feel somewhat ashamed of myself.

I go last, after every other bass has gone up at least once. I do not find the part. I am standing next to a tenor, and my voice slips into his role. I sing softly in an attempt to disguise my ignorance, praying that the directors won’t ask for a repeat. We finish.

“Okay, sing it again please, and Andrew?  Sing a bit louder, okay?”

I nod my head. My soul implodes. I do not have a moment of sudden clarity and miraculously belt out a booming bass. Instead, I match the tenor again and fail to hit several of the notes. I applaud myself for being enough of an actor to be able to hide my rage and disappointment. I walk off stage, trying to take consolation in the fact that at least I am halfway through.

The callback for Enjolras is not for another four hours. I head to the student center to eat a quesadilla, and then head back to the practice rooms.

Here I proceed to significantly lower my chances of getting the role. The last few lines are in the outskirts of my range, and so to make up for it I try to shout/sing them, and scratch my voice in the process. This is exacerbated by yelling the very last note in an attempt to reach it. I am waging psychological warfare on myself as well, berating myself and convincing myself that I’ve wasted my time and my parents’ money. The pity party begins.

A friend of mine who is listening to me sing tells me to focus more on the character then the singing. He is convinced that if I can get into character, I won’t have such a hard time hitting the notes.

“Think of it as a monologue instead of a song”

So I sit down, cradling my head in my hands, trying to slip into the skin of the young, vibrant, Enjolras. As I consider the character as depicted in the novel, the musical, and the book, I wonder how a writer feels when they see an actor present him or herself under the guise of a character they created. I try to imagine what purpose Hugo had for creating Enjolras, what message he needed this character to convey to his readers. I muster up the urgency that would be felt by the leader of a revolution, the determination, the sense of purpose. I let it seep in through my pores, into my blood. And then my name is called.

I take the stage. The whole thing is over in twenty seconds. I hit the last note, but it sounded a bit like a dying animal. All in all, I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that it did not go as badly as it could have. I’m an acting student, not a musical theatre major.

And as Hugo so eloquently wrote through his character Jean Val Jean:

“It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.”

Sunshine and Rain

I wrote this for a friend and wanted to share it with you all. Hope you enjoy it.

The world is a contradiction. Like the sun shining in the middle of a storm, or a beautiful disaster, it doesn’t make sense. We are broken, all of us, and when people hurt, they tend to lash out. They don’t understand why, they don’t care to dig deeper, all they know is something hurts, and someone else must suffer the consequences. A few us have learned that living that way doesn’t solve anything. We know that breaking other people does not put our own pieces back together. You know that, and I know that, but many others don’t. So when we look around and see the pain, the hurt, the cruelty and injustice, when we look around and see this world it forces a reaction. The first option that presents itself is defeat. Give up. Get out. Go home. It’s too much, it’s too hard, I don’t want to be a part of it. I won’t. That option always tempts me the most. It’s the easiest attitude to adopt. And we start believing that maybe things would be better somewhere else.

Maybe if I had this, or that, things would be different. Life would be different. The reality is, people are everywhere. And as long as we’re around people, we will be around pain. The irony is, we need people in our lives. We are made for community, for the sharing of souls. We are made to hold hands, cradle hearts, embrace arms. So if we must have people, we must learn what we are to do with the inevitable pain. With the pain that comes with living, with witnessing hurt people hurting people. We have to embrace the contradiction. We have to live not for the tears of the storm, but for the rays of sun shining through it. Rather then becoming overwhelmed by the rain we must learn to let it pass through, to shine on in spite of the pain. If we can accept contentment as the state of being we desire, instead of looking on at those who hurt others and feeling bitterness, we can begin to pity them. We can begin to see all that they are destroying in their ignorance, the folly of their blind eyes.

And perhaps then, we can live in such a way that our happiness is independent of our surroundings. In such a way that, because we know and admit we are broken and imperfect, we long to inspire others to realize it for themselves. So we reach out, both to those who love us, and those who hurt us. We shine on. And when our perspective is one that sees the sun brightening a rainy day rather then rain ruining a sunny day, we can smile because we know better. Because we know that after the rain comes a rainbow. Color comes after the grey, the light of the morning always follows even the darkest of nights. I think there will be a rainbow at the end of our storm. If we live like the passing rain we will miss it, we will be gone before it ever comes; But if we shine like the sun, we will revel in the colors that will be revealed at the end of all things, colors without pain. The choice is ours.

All The Time In The World

“If you knew how much work went into it you would not call it genius” -Michelangelo

I’ve been thinking about beauty lately. Specifically, beauty in the form of art; created by human hands shaping the world in which they have been placed. Michelangelo knew something about beauty. Some might call his work a masterpiece. Carved over the course of two years, Pieta (above) was the only creation of his that he ever signed, something he later regretted and vowed never to do again. The piece is considered one of the greatest works of sculpture ever created, if not the greatest. And what struck me most about the piece was this one fact: Michelangelo completed it at the age of 24.

If that’s not a significant accomplishment I don’t know what is. I can only hope to accomplish a work of such monumental beauty by such a young age. If I do want to create something beautiful though, I know of at least one absolutely necessary ingredient I will have to have: time.

It seems that time is something we have less and less of lately. Our culture has become one of go, go, go and do, do, do with no respite from the madness, no time to just be. And even in those precious few moments of still and quiet, we find ways to plug into the noise. I have a few minutes in between classes? Lets see what’s going down on Facebook. Interesting article on my CNN homepage? Better check it out. And oh look! A link to another interesting article! And another, and another.. With the lives of the world on display, it has become very easy to lose our own in the chaos. Needless to say, I have let myself fall into living a very distracted life.

For this reason, I have decided to take a break from the Internet and media for the month of November. No Facebook, no online news, no browsing. No TV shows or addictive iPhone apps. I’ll only plug back in if absolutely necessary (homework, step by step instructions on how to perform CPR) or possibly to upload another blog post.

With the time I save from cutting out these things I hope to focus a little bit more on beauty. And just to be clear, beauty isn’t limited to sculptures. Nor is it limited to painting, drawing, or singing. These things are certainly beautiful, but so are families and relationships. So are dreams pursued, or the search for spirituality. And all these things take time. The more time we give them, the more beautiful they become. Give enough time, and you will create a masterpiece.

So that is my thought process behind this fast I’m about to undertake. There are some songs I’ve been meaning to write, some stories I want to tell. Some relationships that deserve more of my time. And a God I need to pursue. If you can relate, I welcome you to join me. You never know what you might discover, how much time you might take back. And if this isn’t a problem for you, more power to you, keep it up.

Here’s to creating beauty.

YOLO

Do you know what you want from this life? Take a moment and think about it. Where are you going? I’m not saying you need the whole thing mapped out, just some basic ideas. Let me ask you a few questions.

Do you want to be married someday? Don’t be offended by the question please, I know that’s probably a long ways off for you if you fall under the age of 24. People are waiting longer and longer to sign their lives away. Just think about it though; marriage. Making the choice to spend this short life with someone you love. Can you see their smile? Can you feel the warmth of their hand in yours, the comfort of their embrace? Can you imagine the peace that comes with the knowledge that this person will be with you for better or for worse, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. The wedding dress, the timeless ceremony.  The two of you standing before God and man, proclaiming your love, committing to fidelity, creating a bond that will not be broken, till death parts your paths. Marriage.

What about what inevitably comes next; kids? If the first question was too much to consider then this one probably has you really upset, but just humor me. Do you want to have children someday? Can you imagine holding your child for the very first time, hearing their cry? Picture their vulnerability, their dependence. Any parent will tell you that the love between a parent and a child is something unparalleled by any relationship you will ever experience. I’m told that there is a part of Gods love that can only be understood when you have children of your own. I imagine it’s a desperate love, one that longs to comfort, to protect, to provide. A love that is willing to sacrifice your own wants and desires to provide for another.  Children.

Perhaps you don’t want either of these things. There’s nothing wrong with that. Even so, there must be something you desire. This whole life is a pursuit; we pursue what we desire. So I have one last question; how do you want to be remembered? Too cliché? Think about it anyway, just for a moment. You don’t have to die to leave a legacy. We live out our legacy every day. We choose to be either a blessing or a curse, there is no in between. A few days ago I attended the funeral service of a great man and old friend of my family. The church was nearly full, many tears were shed, and one after another his friends and family stood up to speak about how he had touched their lives. A six-year-old boy got up in front of the crowd to share what I believe is safe to assume was the general sentiment; “George was a good man, and he was my friend”. His legacy did not come about as the result of his death, it was built up everyday of his life, with every smile he shared. A legacy earned over a lifetime.

You’re probably wondering what all of this has to do with the title of this post. YOLO. Well, now that I’ve asked you a few questions, I want you to take your answers and paint a picture of that reality in your mind. Picture your family, your legacy, the things you’re leaving behind. Put it in the frame of a full life. Can you see it?

My challenge is this; don’t do anything that would take away from the beauty of that picture. You only live once. We’ve got one shot, one opportunity, one race to run, the span of which lasts only a lifetime. This acronym may be new, but the lifestyle is not. Our generation has not only abused this particular phrase to justify all kinds of destructive behavior, many of us have embraced this mentality as a way of life. You only live once, might as well party with no care for consequences, might as well sleep with her, might as well try it.

And what is the result? Broken pictures. Pictures missing people, missing hope, missing smiles. A child with a father she will never know, a family who mourns the loss of their child who chose to drive drunk, or the drunkard who has to live with the fact that they have taken a life. A realization that maybe sex isn’t just physical after all. Wishing that we weren’t carrying so much baggage from all the nights we went at with a YOLO mindset. I don’t mean to be dark, but I believe in giving people you love the truth.

None of us is perfect, and perfection isn’t what I’m asking for. What I am asking is that we keep in mind the fact the voices of our decisions echo into the future.  At the funeral service somebody who spoke shared this quote, “God has appointed judgment day at the end of all time because our decisions shape the world even after our deaths.” You only live once; your decisions live on forever. Paint a beautiful picture with your life. Fill your days with adventure, chase after your love, pursue your dreams and satisfy your soul. We have only one life to live, let’s not waste it. Live with your heart in the moment, but let your eyes look toward the future. #YOLO

Superheroes

I grew up reading comic books, though you would never have gotten me to admit it. Cool kids didn’t read comic books. I shudder now to think about how much money I spent on those adventure-filled pages; but back then, week after week, month after month, the heroes in each panel came alive for me for a small fee that amounted to most of my allowance. Wolverine and his claws, Spiderman and his webs, Batman and his… angst. These colorful characters awed and inspired me every time I entered into their worlds. I didn’t want to be like them, I wanted to be them. I wanted to be a superhero.

To help you better understand how serious I am when I say that, I’ll let you in on a little secret. “Superhero” was a legitimate career option for me until the age of thirteen. At least. Even now I still try to move the occasional ketchup bottle with my mind. (“Andrew, do you want the salt? You’ve been staring at it for five minutes now and you look like you’re about to pass out.” “What? Oh yeah, thanks”).  As a kid, I was dead set on serving criminals big bowls of justice for the rest of my life. Tommy wants to be a fire fighter; Ben wants to be a doctor, and me? For me, pretending to have powers with my friends wasn’t pretending at all. It was practice. I was going to be a superhero, just you wait and see.

Super powers. Everybody wants them, you can’t deny it! If someone were to make an infomercial advertising vats of radioactive waste to jump in with a one in a hundred chance of becoming Superman, “For only three easy payments of $19.99!”, you would pick up that phone faster than I can say “Holy radiation Batman!” And so would I, we would die together. The thing is, comics and movies aren’t about a bunch of guys with the same powers; they’re about a bunch of guys with different powers. They’re unique. Now we’re on to something.

If all superheroes had the same powers, what would be the point? Sure there may be a few aquamen among the hydroguys, but for the most part each hero has their own individual power set. It’s not about the specific powers though, per se. Batman doesn’t even have powers, aside from being super rich The uniqueness though, that does matters. No one really wants to be known for being like someone else. Even if that someone else is a person we idolize, deep down we hunger to know that we are unique. That our powers are different, and that the difference matters. And even then, it’s not the powers we want, it’s something more.

A couple of years ago, I spent a few weeks in Nairobi, Kenya. More specifically, in the slum of Kibera. The level of poverty was like nothing I had ever seen in my entire life. One million people live in less than one square mile. Diseases like AIDS, Malaria and Typhoid Fever run rampant. People that I now call my friends live their lives on less than a dollar a day, not knowing where their next meal is going to come from, or if they’re going to have a next meal at all.

I left Kenya desperately wishing I was a superhero.

The superheroes in all my comics believed in something bigger then themselves. A greater cause to live for than me, myself and I. And they believed in this cause strongly enough to do something about it. They did not take the gifts given to them for granted; they took the gifts they had been given and did something with them. Even if that meant sacrifice, even if it meant pain, even if they knew that the road they would go down was going to be a hard one, no matter what, they stood by what they believed. And when they fell, as even superheroes are sure to do, they never failed to pick themselves back up.

Whether we admit it or not, we’ve all been given powers of our own. Like the heroes of comic book legend, they are unique, and no matter how small or large we may make them out to be, they are there, residing deep within each and every one of us. We are left with the choice of what we are going to do with those powers we’ve been given

I believe the reason we all want to be superheroes is because we are superheroes. Some of us just haven’t realized it yet. Please understand, I do not say this lightly, or to be cheesy or cliché. I say it because the world desperately needs us to realize this truth. No Superman is coming to the rescue of my friends in Kenya, and none ever will. Even if he did, what purpose would he serve? The starving have no need of super strength, the uneducated don’t need someone in tights with the ability to fly. The world is in need of a different kind of superhero, one they will never know unless some of us take the gifts we have been given and use them to make a difference.

If you stand up for what you believe in, you are a superhero. I don’t tell you this to boost your self-esteem, or make you feel good about yourself, I tell you this because you need to hear it. I tell you this because there are millions of people out there waiting for you to rescue them, to give them hope. You have the power to feed the hungry, clothe the cold and naked, and provide a future for hopeless hearts. Your skills and talents were given to you to serve a greater purpose. Please, don’t give in to apathy. We need you. Stand up, and save the world.

I still want to be a superhero when I grow up. I’ve never been able to let go of that dream. While reading a comic book the other day, (yeah, I still pick them up every once and a while), an interesting thought crossed my mind. I saw my life in panels and pages, lines and inks, a comic adventure of my very own. You’ve got one too, you know. God in heaven is writing beautiful, powerful, meaningful comics, and you know who the superhero is?

You.

Diamonds

Pressure is a dangerous thing. It pushes, squeezes, crushes, anyone or anything that falls under it’s influence. The cautionary labels read; “Warning, contents under pressure”, in an effort to remind us of what should be intuitive knowledge, anything under pressure is prone to explode. “But pressure can refine, create, transform”, say the idealists.”Just look at coal, with the right amount of pressure it becomes a diamond.” And the idealists do well to think this way, but when considering their words it seems we forget one very simple, yet important truth, and it is this; we, the men and women of the human race, are not lumps of coal. We are flesh and blood and spirit too.

Today’s world is one of dead lines, due dates, and crunch time. To take an example from one of my english classes (paraphrasing the words as my brain hears them)

“You have one day to pick a poet, two days to pick a poem, three days to pick a published critique, five days to turn in a rough draft, two weeks to complete your paper, and everyday from now until then to discover new methods of procrastination.”

Ultimatums are found everywhere; turn in the paper or fail the class, finish the report, or lose your job, be on time, or don’t be there at all. And surely, pressures of this sort are necessary, to a degree, for our world to function. However, it is the more abstract pressures that push people beyond what they can bear.

From the time we are young our minds begin to fill with expectations. Some handed to us by the world we find ourselves in, and some of our own creation. “Buy this product” scream the billboards, commercials, ads, “and you will be as beautiful, popular, desirable as (fill in celebrity who has never actually used the product themselves here) “Go to our college, and you will be as sophisticated, smart, successful as (insert long list of alumni who have made enough of a name for themselves to have a wikipedia entry here. Disregard the fact that many other factors unrelated to their college of choice have brought them to the place they are today) And perhaps the most painful expectations are those put on us by our family. “Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister? (don’t acknowledge the fact that siblings are in fact two different people, with different dreams, desires goals here.) I refer to these pressures as abstract because the expectations they put inside our minds aren’t as tangible as other pressures, but they are no less potent.

With all this pressure, we deceive ourselves into believing we are lumps of coal on our way to becoming diamonds, but the truth is that perfection has never belonged to mankind. Nonetheless, in an attempt to seize it, we take upon ourselves every pressure conceivable. Join every club, every group, every team. Take every class, every optional extra, every opportunity. Make any friends by any means for any recognition. We are not lumps of coal, but our fantasies of the diamonds we long to become make us crave, hunger, lust for perfection.

Pressure also destroys. From experience, pressure has shown me that it has the power to kill. Our world is being torn to shreds by pressure. I have seen friends and family members ripped apart by the pressure they subject themselves to.

“To be successful is to be rich”

“No it’s to have children”

“It’s about staying single”

It’s to be at the top!”

“It’s to know who you are”

“Who are you?

“You’re an artist”

“No your an athlete”

“You are an employee”

“Don’t be stupid”

“Be your own person. Be ready to conform“

“Make your own path. The worn roads are smoother“

And it goes on, on, on, until one day we snap. Like a deep sea diver realizing too late that they’ve gone too far and all of a sudden the weight is too much and their bones too brittle and their breath too shallow and the water too dark and their hearts too weak.

If only we would remember that we are not lumps of coal, but flesh and blood and spirit too. Pressure does not refine us, but we will never become diamonds, and perfection is a lost cause. My desperate plea for our world is that each and every one of us would simply be human. Find fulfillment in the rising of the sun, the way the rain feels as it falls on your face, the coolness of a breeze on a hot summer day. Find fulfillment in tears shed over lost friends, over broken hearts, over dark thoughts that leave you feeling so alone. Laugh when you feel a smile on your face, when life reminds you of how beautiful it can be, every time you fall, pick yourself back up and laugh. Most importantly; love. Love like you will be gone tomorrow, like you will never see him again, like this is your last time to hold her, because one day, it will be true. Dare to love without expectations, without need for perfection, without bounds. Love because without love every single thing you do will feel so incredibly empty, but nothing fills your soul so deeply as love.

The diamond we seek can be found in bits and pieces all around us, but only if we choose to see it. The pressure is there, but our hand is on the knob, and we must learn to control it.

The idealists are right, but don’t forget; we are not lumps of coal. We are flesh and blood and spirit too.