Finding the Funny: Scorecard Update #5

Well, this week brought about a new challenge in the audition world.  I had to do 16 bars of something funny.  You see, they were holding auditions for The Book of Mormon, the new musical from Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the guys from South Park) and Robert Lopez (one of the writers of Avenue Q).  So when they ask in the breakdown for something comedic, this is the time to pull out the hilarious big guns.  Well, I don't have any comedic hilarity in my musical arsenal, at the moment, so this was gonna require a little work.

My original, thought was to do my song from Triumph of Love.  But at my coaching, Michael and I decided that that song wasn't quite the funny that I needed to have.  I didn't have anything that fit the bill so we had two options: learn a new song in one day or change the lyrics on something we already had.  We decided it would be better to change up something already in my book.  The song that we decided on the one that's become my "old reliable", Who I'd Be.  I  already have a 16 bar cut so, we just changed up the lyrics to make them funny and appropriate to the show and got to work on it.

So yesterday, I was off to Ripley-Grier to sing my newly changed lyrics for the music director and casting person.  From my side of the table, everything went great!  I remembered the lyrics, the notes were all there and I made it as sincere as possible.  I figured sincerity would make the humor come out better than forcing it. On their side, I'm not so sure they got that.  I didn't notice their reaction during the song because I was in the moment but after, they weren't exactly wiping away tears of laughter.  They were very nice, don't get me wrong.

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting.  I guess in my head I thought that it would be so hilarious that they'd stand up and applaud after I finished.  But in reality, I was the 50th guy they saw.  Which means 49 guys had gone in before me trying to do their version of funny.  So, it could've been that they were  already tapped out on laughter when they got to me.  Maybe they were just quiet people, laughing on the inside.  Maybe they hated it.  Who knows?  I was happy with how it went and, for now, that's what has to matter.  I went in and did something different so I'm putting this one on the side of success.

So, we update the scorecard:

  Audition Scorecard 2010

                   6 Success

                   4 Fails  (3 Type Out)

Until next time...