There is a fine line between fearless and foolish; I am not unfamiliar with this line. Ultimately I like to stay on the “fearless” side of the street but there was this one time I crossed over to “foolish”. What can I say about my flirtation with foolish? It was hilarious for 1 and a good story for 2.
The story starts with my inability to sing. Before I go on, as a side note, one weird quirk I have is purposefully underperforming or under showcasing myself. Let me explain – I am a short lady. Regardless, I have no quams about my height. Growing up however, I was under the impression that to be tall was to be superior. This is obviously because models were revered for their physic and their height was a major component of this. Some deductive logic there. Moving on. I reside at a height of 5’2″. That is 5 feet and 2 inches… or so I would have you believe. I am actually right smack dab in the middle of 5’2″ and 5’3″. Instead of embellishing my height and rounding up to 5’3″ I am actually rounding down to 5’2″. I do so in a sort of revolt against societies plight that taller is better. Ok, so how does this relate to my inability to sing? Well, I’ve always underperformed while singing. It’s not like I’m the next Celine and hiding my talent. I am more like an iffy singer under the guise of an awful singer. This piece of the story is crucial because it was exactly this habit of underperforming that made me falsely believe that I had what it takes to be in an onstage production.
The second part to this story is that I of course wanted to be an entertainer all my life, and to me there was something magical about being in the on stage production of the Lion King. This was a belief I had held within me since the time I was lucky enough to see the Lion King on stage in Toronto sometime in my youth. So when I heard of an open casting call for the Lion King onstage taking place in Toronto, I believed this was really my shot. Time to shed the awful singer persona I had curated and embrace the real iffy singer in me. Maybe I was better than iffy? Maybe I could be cast as a small lioness or a meerkat or a blade of grass and my iffy voice would be ok in that situation because I wouldn’t really need to sing.
I knew I would have to sing along with a live pianist for the audition and as I had never done so before I seeked out a vocal singer who could help me out. We had one lesson a week for a good month before the audition. We started off slow with her deciphering my vocal range, which by the way she confirmed I had a good range. Was range enough though? Spoiler alert; iffy is not enough. I remember her literally telling me just to “have fun with it”. Which in vocalist coaching language means, “you have no shot in hell”. Nevertheless I gutted through the singing lessons and came out the other side with 16 bars of audition magic.
In hindsight, my song of choice was bizarre. I should have stuck with easy peasy Happy Birthday. Instead I went for the vocally challenging and range exempt “Born this way” by Lady Gaga. I specifically chose it as a bit of a symbolism to the situation. I knew I was a bad singer, but couldn’t help myself to jump into this opportunity; I was born that way.
The day of the audition had finally arrived and when I got to the location I landed myself approximately 50 people back after a young guy whose audition piece was “Go the Distance” from Hercules. Once I got into the building they signed me in with a number and plucked us into a large gym. As far as the eye could see, people were just singing and stretching. Everyone in this room was either auditioning as a singer, like myself or took option 2 which was as a dance. Back when I read the open casting call I knew there was no way on earth I could fake dancing but somehow I thought I could fake singing. To this day the decision baffles me. The real choice would to have been to say to myself “Sheila, you are not a trained dancer or singer. Your natural talents in both singing and dancing are recreational. This is a red flag. Do not audition.” But the dream of auditioning was too strong so, while everyone else warmed up in the gym I prepared by people watching.
After some time the line starts up again and we’re taken to another corridor to wait for our turn. I’m about 10 people away when they tell us that instead of 16 bars per person we now only have 8 bars per person. In other words “I’m beautiful in my way, cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track baby I was born this way.”
Now, and only now, the nerves start to kick in. Like damnnnnn I have no idea how to sing. I start wondering how I stack up against the people near me. I know a lot of them have decent talent because I heard them all prepping in the gym. They look even more nervous than I do which just shows how deluded I was. This is where the story is somewhat patchy because I truly started to blackout. Flashes of memories…
I’m 3rd in line and am now close enough that I can hear other folks’ auditions. The girl in front of “Go the Distance” is now auditioning and she’s INCREDIBLE. She is who I wanted to be and now I realize I am not. Plus she even looks like Nala. The real Nala.
“Go the Distance” is now in the audition room while they are praising Nala and are clearly very interested in her. I’m in genuine panic mode.
Foolish, foolish, nonsensical, foolish. For some reason, which is likely because I spent the better part of a month prepping and definitely the full day waiting in line, I chose not to leave. I chose to see it through. Yes, yes snaps for me.
The time comes and I’m called into the room. I am ushered directly to the pianist who takes my sheet music and asks me where he is to begin and end playing. While he’s talking I scan the room. “Go the Distance” is getting feedback from the panel of judges, or whomever they are. There are 3 of them seated behind a table with a video camera. The pianist tells me he’s going to play 2 bars prior to when I come in with my 8 bars. The pianist is on my side. He knows I know nothing. He’s telling me what to do. I step up in front of the judges (or whomever) and say my name. Then immediately, without notice, the pianist starts playing and before I know it, I’ve missed my cue. I was wrong. The pianist is not on my side. He’s playing so fast. He’s the Prince of Darkness. Somewhere in the middle I just start singing. Not in synchronicity with the lightning pianist. Just haphazardly speeding up and slowing down to try to catch the instrumental. And then it was over. The judges (or whomever) literally just looked at me without saying anything. NO WORDS WERE SAID. And then a quick “thank you” and I hustled out of there.
Below is a video of me imitating myself during my audition.
Besides the fact that I’m certain the pianist had it out for me, I am also certain I had no chance whatsoever. But like I said, snaps for me because I made it out on the other side to tell the story with nothing damaged but my pride. Not even though because look what I gained! Now I know next time there are auditions for the onstage production of the Lion King, I either sing Happy Birthday or try out for dance.
Do fearlessness and foolishness live mutually exclusive from one another, or, must you in some way be somewhat foolish to be fearless? Whatever the genesis of fearlessness as a whole, in this case I can only thank my blind foolishness for this memory. I know what you’re probably thinking. “This isn’t foolish at all!”. And you know what, I agree 😉
