The BIG audition day...

Woke up at 6.
Left Georgia at 7.
Arrived at Disney at about 10.
Realized I forgot your "special" audition shirt.
Quick drive to Target to buy another shirt, not quite the same but good enough.
Back to the Casting center, and in the lobby by 11:40 for my 12pm interview. The doorknobs were awesome, I'll include a picture at a later date.
The place was amazingly decorated from fun looking chairs to a miniature Cinderella castle in the middle of the lobby, it was awesome.
After watching a short video about the Disney Difference, I met Sandie, the recruiter I would have my interview with.

Sandie was extremely positive and was shocked by the size of my resume, and since I had worked at Six Flags, and knew what went into the character work, there was a lot less explaining for her to do. Within minutes of talking to her, she said I already was hired by the company, and now just had to pass entertainment auditions. She asked about some of my favorite experiences at Six Flags to where I talked about the autistic boy at the Wiggles show, and the deaf boy when he met Scooby Doo. She went on to talk about all the special opportunities Disney has such as Make A Wish and other alike programs. She said as a matter of fact, one of her coworkers was escorting Donald Duck this weekend to Boston to meet a little boy. Wow. She gave me some tips for the audition that evening and sent me on my way after we joked and exchanged information. She noted that if entertainment didn't have a place for me for some strange reason, she would receive my information back and would give me a call about other opportunities, and that she would definitely find a place for me. Her confidence in me was shocking.

As I left the building at about 12:40, I noticed the impeccable decoration of the descending ramp to the main foyer. Beautifully painted disney characters floated among the painted European-looking architecture. I noticed several places where the plaster had fell away from the brick, leaving cracks, and some exposed brick, however. I was shocked to see that Disney would let that kind of thing slide without getting it fixed and patched. As I got closer to the cracks, to my astonishment, the cracks were only painted on, with beautiful detail and perfect shading, again reminding me about the level of quality with Disney detail. The people at the desk at the top of this ramp probably were looking at me strange as it took me a good 5 minutes to walk down the 50 or so foot ramp. Above this ramp was a balcony which overlooked the ramp, with skylights, and surrounding the balcony were all of the recruiters' offices.

Onto the Animal Kingdom Rehearsal Facility for the Character/Puppeteer audition. A maze-like building led me to a big waiting room with about 80 or 90 people in it. I sat myself next to this lady who reminded me of my grandmother, stark white hair, and extremely trendy. We talked, exchanged backgrounds, and she said she was extremely nervous because everyone was so much younger than her. I reassured her that this meant that she was one of the few in her "type" range, so she should feel lucky. Registration began, and I was surprised to see how many people didn't have headshots or resumes, as the audition notice stated, let alone cover letters. Oh well. I was number 16.

A half hour later or so, numbers 1-60 got called into another room for the dance call, if i can even call it that. Gina, a lady of 5 feet if that taught us the dance combination. She was amazing, funny, and broke the tension very easily. Demonstrating what not to do was perhaps my favorite thing about her. We learned the short 2 counts of eight in under 10 minutes, did it a few times, and then she said we would do the 2 counts of 8 three times, traveling the length of the room in groups of 4, in numerical order. She lined us up, and to my surprise, after 15 minutes of being in this room, the casting directors (CDs) were already at the end of the room behind the disneyauditions.com royal blue table. This was it. We were being judged this time. After Six Flags' dance call, I was feeling extremely comfortable with this routine. And as cheesy as it sounds, i can just picture characters dancing down mainstreet doing this dance. I was in the 4th group, due to my number, and we were off dancing down the room. The music was a "It's a Small World" remix which has now been DELIGHTFULLY stuck in my head since then. My group did a great job, and as we were on the side, Gina encouraged us to clap along with exaggerated clapping way over her head. It was great. Her counting 5-6-7-8 to start us off was great too. There was a point in the dance when she made all of us on the side "raise the roof" for a few counts. HAHA. "Where a tortoise can carry the day...". The CDs had great smiles on their faces, and I was surprised to see people fumble and completely lose the dance all together, one girl was half-heartedly doing it from the beginning, lost it at the first box step/jazz square and from then on just walked dejected with a frown on her face the whole way down to the end of the room only catching on to the "windshield wiper hands", and then she decided to just walk ahead of her group and join the line of finished people. The older woman aforementioned did an amazing job, and rocked it out. I was proud of her. We cheered each other on, it was great. After we had all danced, we were taken back to the main waiting room.

The next group of people went to do the dance. After they left, groups of people were called up and let go. Some because the College Program didn't want to extend their stay, others because they were not fit for the department, and were referred to the Casting Center to find another department for them. They were all let go. It was funny to see the different people at the casting call. This one girl made everything a production number and was done up ala Barbie. During registration, she did a ballet twirl to get herself under the measuring device. She then made a grand re-entrance to the room after using the restroom, and i think she must have "bend and snap"ed at least 23842348 times throughout the day. Help me.

After the next group rejoined us, it was time for some more cuts, and then they called us into different places. Some, with more dance training, as showed on their sheet we filled out, went on to a more complex dance call. Some more of us went on to an "animation" workshop. I'd estimate there were about 40 of us. We went back into the other rehearsal hall, and watched a short video showing different character animations, from Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges to characters in the park, as shown in an old Disneyland video, which I had as a kid, boy did that bring me back ("Whistle While You Work" where Minnie sets up the display full of Minnie dolls, and later on Donald Duck replaces the display with Donald dolls, Chip and Dale make a mess with the popcorn, goofy is sweeping the streets? YEAH, anyway) They demonstrated some animation, mime and clowning techniques, and then we were set to the challenge of animating the scenario of waking up and realize you're 4 hours behind schedule, so you're racing to get everything done. This was done in groups of 5. I used my typical clowning type movements, and other techniques i learned in mask class at UConn. The CDs caught my eye on some of my really good parts and gave a smile, one of them named Saronya. I made things as big as I could, and they seemed to like that. After this, we were all dismissed back to the waiting rooms. Some people were led on to look-a-like auditions for the princesses. I, fortunately, did not fit any of the requirements to audition for a Disney princess.

Back to the waiting room, where the dance call folks joined us. Some more rounds of cuts were made, some people were told that they had passed, although nothing was available for them right now, but they would be given a call within the next 6 months if something did open up. The last audition to be held was the puppeteer audition. To my utter shock and amazement, ok maybe not, I was called for this audition. Tracie was the instructor for this portion of the audition. She talked with us about puppetry, and how there's nowhere you can be taught puppetry or stilt walking, but how this is something that Disney offers you, for free. I bit my tongue. She was hilarious though, so i let it slide for now :-D. We were each given a pair of "Muppet Eyes" to put on our hands. Shockingly, Barbie had made it to this round, and not shockingly started by putting the ping pong balls inside her "mouth". Tracie, jokingly suggested she take the balls out of her mouth and put them on top of her hand. She talked us through the basics of puppetry lip sync, and had us put our hands up and lip sync the word "Hi." then "Hello." Then she had us lip sync numbers 1-10, being careful for that tricky double syllable "seven". Next, 11-20, watching out for "eleven" and "seventeen", the tricky triple syllables. Oh boy! Next, she covered the concept of syllable dropping, since trying to hit every syllable while speaking fast was hard, and messy. So we tried that a few times and then she put on a song I had never heard before, although some people seemed to be familiar with it. I was hoping for something Disney. Oh well. I worked my way through it, making it up as I went along, afterall, Ojo's a pro at that. He rarely knows much of the songs he's singing. So Tracie walked around during this first sing-through of the song, dancing with us, and trying to interact with the different characters. I really bought into this when she was near me, as opposed to some of the others, she got near me right before the dance break section halfway through the song, and we had a fun little dance. The rest of the song went on, and ended. Saronya entered again, and now it was judging time. We were split off into two groups of 9, and were asked to show the song to them, now both seated at the royal blue Disney table. I was in the second group, so I got to sit back and watch the first group's beginning puppetry techniques, which always amuse me. The incredible sinking puppet, the backwards lip sync, closing the mouth on every syllable rather than opening, the stiff puppet that barely moves. My group's turn came up, and for the first part of the song, Tracie and Saronya scanned the crowd. During the dance break, I showed off some of my skills, from running the puppet in a circle around itself, to running in a larger circle, and some of my trademark dance moves HA. After this, we began singing again, and although I was mostly looking at the mirror, but I glanced at the CDs a few times, and noticed that they were fixated on my puppet and were talking while referencing me. AH! So after we returned the eyes into Tracie's insulated lunch bag, I talked to her about how I was referred to the audition, and mentioned that I had two friends with me, Ojo and Edward Wonderful. She said she didn't know if they could see them, but Saronya overheard and said that they did indeed have the time. I went to take out Edward, but much to my dismay and anger, Edward decided to be stage fright and tangled himself so he couldn't audition. I did however show him to them, and described briefly his construction and performance. I brought out Ojo, unfortunately similar to the style we had done before, but they were excited to see him. Tracie asked if I wanted music to "sing" to. I agreed, and she started going through her CD portfolio. Ironically the first CD portfolio was Wiggles. I described the irony, and Tracie said that was the one then. She played the first song, and it was Wags The Dog. "Oh me oh my....he barks all day and night!" I rocked it out, they were charmed by him. It was at that point that I realized how repetitive the Wiggles actually are, "Oh me oh my he barks all day and night" x 234823487 at the end of the song, at various pitches and speeds. After the song ended, I thanked them, they thanked me, and talked quietly while i put Ojo and the misbehaving Edward back in the bag. After complete, they described how rare it was to have someone with my expertise and training audition for them, and that they hope that they'll be able to put my talents to use. I business carded them, said another thanks, and headed back to the waiting room.

I found that the last group was leaving, and it was me and one other girl left. She angrily approached the table with some CDs sitting at it, and asked them why she was still there, with the incredibly WRONG tone in her voice. They asked her to take a seat while they looked for her file. They found it and talked, and it looked like they changed her status and the flyer she was going to get from a potential hire, to a rejection. Woof. She just screwed herself over there. So they called her up and gave her the flyer, to which she marched out of the room rolling her eyes at me. I smiled and waved goodbye. Now it was just me and them for a few minutes while they received my file.

A friend I had made over the evening, Ayla, came back from wherever she had been taking pictures for princesses, and she said how much fun it was. I talked with her about where she lived down there, and she gave me some tips and places to look at. She says every night she can see the fireworks from the Wishes nighttime spectacular at magic kingdom. How awesome is that? Anyway, I got called up to chat. The CD explained that since it is a while until I will be in the area, that they can't say for sure what will be available at that time, so I am playing the waiting game to hear. He said that it looks like my audition went really well, it's just that they don't have a spot for me later this year that they know of yet. I'm glad he didn't say they had something for me right away, I'm sure not too many people would have been thrilled if I stayed down here instead of returning to the cold slushy CT. :-D

I also found out that "Finding Nemo: The Musical" requires the Singer/Actor audition as well, which I will have to complete at a later date, although who knows, they may have an audition in New York before I plan on moving down to Orlando. So we'll see what happens, over all the audition was remarkably successful and fun, athough very stressful and tense, but I tried to not let that show.

It was just after 7pm when I exited the building. Grammy and I drove back to Georgia, stopping along the way for dinner at Smokey Bones. Midway through dinner, an older man at a dinner party of maybe 15 guests or so stood up to sing a song with a thick Irish brogue. If the song had one more verse to it, I think the whole restaurant would have gotten up and left. The wine was clearly flowing heavily at that table.

Anyway, we got back to Georgia at around midnight, at which time I promptly passed out for a good long night's sleep. What an exhausting, athough extremely rewarding and amazing day! It was such a tease to be in Orlando and see some major theme park landmarks (Epcot Globe, some World Showcase sites from the rear, Hollywood Studios' Tower of Terror, The top of the AK Tree of Life and Expedition Everest) without actually going into the parks. The only park I didn't see any of was the Magic Kingdom. Oh I can't wait for Monday!!! So exciting!

Today is a day for relaxing, catching up on e-mails, and finally getting organized here. Talk to you all soon! Thanks for checking up on the blog, sorry for the extreme length of the blog, i know you wanted details, so there ya go! X

Ty