Well, let me make a correction to yesterday’s post.  I said (several times) that there were five guys who made up the set of unemployed steelworkers who decide to strip.  I was wrong.  It’s six.

That said, I went to callbacks this evening with a lot of trepidation.  Since it was the last day of regular auditions, callbacks didn’t start until 8:15ish.

I noticed tonight that many women showed up, and only a couple of guys.  That’s good.  The women included Emily (yay!), Heather, and an ex-girlfriend who — well, never mind.  I also learned that a couple of women did in fact audition earlier this week in Winston-Salem.  But only a couple.

Heather greeted me with a "you bastard" or something like that, because this morning I had persuaded her to audition.  She didn’t know the show OR the music, but you wouldn’t know from the way she auditioned.  I’m glad she did.  I never got a chance to talk to her about her honeymoon though.

Only 4 women were called back.  Of course, they will cast more than just four.  Emily and Heather were, naturally, two of them.  They sang, they read a few scenes.  I got to read for the "Dave" role opposite Heather, which was cool.  She nailed it.

As for the guys, there were about 8 of us.  And they were clearly looking for guys to fill the spots of four of the six strippers — Jerry (lead), Dave (his "fat bastard" buddy), Harold (the suprevisor), and Malcolm (the nebbishy guy).  There were, for example, no black guys there for the role of "Horse".

And for the part of Dave, they were clearly only looking at me and this other guy named Eric.

A caveat that I would do well to keep in mind: the absence of someone at callbacks doesn’t mean they aren’t being considered.  It could mean they just had a conflict.  For example, Jeff Agular wasn’t there, but I don’t think it was for any other reason other than a conflict.  But Neil was there, Gray was there, that guy Scott was there (from last night), and a few faces I didn’t know.

So just because it looked like they were only reading me and another guy for Dave, doesn’t mean it’s just down to us two.  For all I know, they may have found the perfect Dave three days ago.

It’s impossible to tea-leaf-read these things.  Neil and Gray were phenomenal.  Heather and Emily were phenomenal.  I’m not even in the same league, and I know it.  As for the guy who I was "competing" with for Dave, he was good — a bit younger than me.  I generally liked my readings better, but his interpretation was influenced by Jamie’s direction (which he followed well).  Sadly, during one of my readings, I got a little tongue-tied, but I don’t think it was fatal.

They started us off with singing.  For each male role they were looking at, the musical director selected the songs with the highest notes.  There was a lot of screeching for the men (this is a VERY hard show musically).  Even Neil and Gray were struggling, but they’re such consummate singers, they pulled it off.  Me?  Well, not so much.  I did the best I could.  There were just a couple notes I couldn’t hit — I switched to my falsetto and got close.  And I was a bit self-conscious that I went flat on notes that I should have hit.  Ugh.  I don’t want to think about that.

No dance movement though.

Jamie’s got a tough task.  I know he probably has formulated his "cast" in his head, but of course, he has to contend with the viewpoints of Dauna (the choreographer) and April (the musical director), as well as — to a perhaps lesser extent — the input of the artistic directors of both CTG and Little Theatre of Winston-Salem (both of whom were there for callbacks).  You get five creative people in one room trying to cast a show, and it’s — well — it has the potential for ugliness.  Or maybe not.  You never know with these things.

In any event, we were told we would get a call by 1:00 tomorrow.  I don’t know if that means we’ll get a call if we didn’t get cast, or if we’ll only get called if we did.  And the first rehearsal is tomorrow evening.  Yup, it’s a tight schedule — opening night is July 6, which is in six weeks, an incredibly short time for an ambitious musical like this.

But right now, I’m going to bed.  I can’t do anything more at this point.

UPDATE:  Well, it’s 11:50 a.m. the next day, and no word.  This probably means I didn’t get cast as Dave.  Oh, well.  Just hope I can get involved in some way.

UPDATE No. 2 (1:00 p.m.):  Got cast in chorus/various roles.  That other guy, Eric, got the "Dave" part.  Technically, I am "SAL/MINISTER/TONY/BALLROOM DANCE INSTRUCTOR (DANCES WITH
"JOANIE")/POLICE SARGEANT/REPO MAN # 3 ".