The open call for female dancers started at 10 am (at Chelsea Studios) and I got there just a few minutes before ten (took the train in from NJ). I was number 108 out of about 130 girls, which wasn’t so bad as my friend auditioned the day before and was 115 out of about 300.

We went in by groups of about 40 (I was in the last group) and did a short across the floor combination for choreographer Joey McKneely. For you dancers… it was from the left to right side of the studio, a pas de chat with the right leg leading and left leg extending at the last second, ball-change, high kick, soutenou, cha-cha. That was all we got, an eight count and a cha-cha! After all the girls in my group had gone Joey called bout 5 girls to do the combination again and I was the second in that group.

After a couple of second of agony as they deliberated, Joey stood in front of us with a pile of headshots, and I could see my picture at the bottom of the pile! A handful of girls were called at 11 or 11:30 for either shark or jet girls, and my name was the only one called out of my group to come back at 2 to dance with the boys.

When I came back at 2 there were 5 other girls called for Anybodys, and a roomful of male dancers. We were taught a section of the dance from “Cool” which was about 5 times as long and 20 times as complicated as the hop-skip from the morning. In the end, one girl and maybe 4 boys were called to sing and read, and the rest of us “would be notified if they wanted to see us again”.

It was really a great experience, and a major ego boost. I didn’t tell anybody at school the next day (I’d have to explain what a callback is and everything…) but we did have a Thespian Society meeting that day (of which I am the president of) and our director was telling us about our feedback from the “Rising Star Awards” (like a kiddie Tony for high schools in NJ) and several of the judges commented that they were impressed with the “professional quality featured dancers.” All I could think was “you’re right I’m professional quality—I was considered for a Broadway show this weekend!” (My director has a thing against dancers and tries to limit our stage time as much as possible.)

So after that i'm really souped to go forward with my career.

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