We leave the house at 5:30am.  Since it’s only a 4 1/2 hour drive, we end up getting arena a little after 10.  My arrival time was scheduled for 2 (but Nick’s head would have exploded if we had been late), so we grab some lunch and kill some time.  We get back to the IZOD Center around noon, and I spend about 15 minutes warming up in the car – and watching other singers smoke their last cigarettes (wha?) – before we finally step out into the sweltering heat.  Nick spends about 15 minutes in line with me outside, and then they won’t let him go any further.  When he asks about how much longer the process takes from that point on, they tell him about 3 hours.  Now I feel horrible, because, not only does he have to spend 3 hours outside alone, it’s also over 100 degrees out.

I continue on, on my own, and finally get into the building and out of the sun.  After about 10 minutes, they send us through security, and then down to the next holding section, on the floor of the arena.  When we come in, they assign us to one of 14 lines, where we wait to go through registration.  And wait.  And wait.  While waiting, I absorb my surroundings.  There are at least twice as many women as men, almost everyone is between 16 and 35.  Apparently, allowing your bra to show is in this season.  I hear opinions on the first season of The Voice, stories of other audition processes (including one guy who said he was rejected from the American Idol auditions for being too bold, having too much bravado, and “basically being too good to be put on the show”), and even a little singing.  There are people of all sizes, colors and personalities, but the overwhelming majority of them are incredibly nice.

When I’m about 3 people from the front of the line, they stop the registration process to let the next couple holding areas thin out a bit, so we wait some more.  I message Nick and tell him to go find someplace with air conditioning to hang out in for a couple hours.  At least.

Finally, we start moving again.  They check our paperwork again, give us wrist bands, scan the barcode on our passes, and send us on to the next holding area, splitting us into 2 groups on either side of the arena, lining us up in rows of 10 or so.  At this point, the woman directing us tells us that they are looking for contemporary artists, so we should be singing some newer songs.  This is when I start to panic.  The song I have chosen to start with, Sooner or Later, is from 1990.  The second song, Crazy on You, is from 1976.  So I start to think I should go back to another song that I had planned as an alternate that’s a little more recent.  But then she says that they want you to choose songs from your genre.  If you are an R&B singer, then don’t sing Jazz.  So now I’m stuck.  My preferred genre is rock.  But I chose songs that compliment my voice and the strong aspects of my ability.  My panic rises.

There are 2 sections in the stands on either side of the arena where we will be moved next.  When one section is completely empty, they sit us.  At this point, my throat feels like cardboard from the AC and I’m almost out of water.  Dammit!  Why did I not take a free water before getting in line?  And why is there none here?  It is also at this point, when I look down on the arena floor, at the rows and rows of people waiting to register or waiting to be seated in the stands, that I start feeling like a cow in a giant herd.

They are grabbing people in groups of 10 to go to in front of the producers.  While waiting to be called down, the guy directing us in this section tells us they do not want people to sing really old songs like Somewhere Over the Rainbow or At Last because they’ve been done a million times.  Not for the first time, I think this would have been helpful information to put on the web site (which literally said any genre, any artist, any song).  I sit and contemplate what the hell I am going to actually sing when I get in there and still don’t have a firm answer when my group gets called.

A young woman herds us into the last standing area, a hallway with many rooms off to one side under the stands (there are other rooms in the hallway above the stands where they are also holding auditions, but we were sent down instead of up). They line us up against the wall and explain the process to us (which I am only half listening to, because they are explaining a different thing to the group directly to my left, and I’m so thirsty that the sight of the water bubbler next to me and my quest to refill my water bottle takes precedence over all else, even if it is city water).  I miss some of it, but the basic gist is you know before you leave the room if you are selected of not, or are a maybe.  If you’re a yes, you get escorted to a “yes room” to fill out paperwork and schedule a callback.  If you’re a no, they cut off your wrist band and you take the walk of shame down the hallway, out of the building and back to your normal life.  It seems that about 95% of people are doing the latter.

After several minutes, they move us to stand in line at a different room that is “moving faster”.  Unfortunately, the producer needs to take a break, so this rooms ends up not, in fact, moving faster.  The guy working outside this room is super sweet, asking us all lots of questions, and genuinely excited for all of us.  He collects our paperwork (finally, I’ve been carrying this thing around for 3 1/2 hours) and tells us that they want us to sing songs that showcase out talent.  They don’t care about genre or when they were written.  I think, since he is the one physically closest to the producer, he would probably know best, and finally breathe a small sigh of relief about my song selection.  But I’m so nervous about the actual audition that my legs feel like they are made of jello.  I talk to a couple of the other girls in our group while we are waiting, admitting I’m afraid my pitch is going to be off because of my nerves.  Some of them admit the same fear.  None of us has ever auditioned for anything like this before.  We can here some people in the rooms singing, even through the cinder block walls, though it’s muffled to the point that I can’t tell if it’s any good.  And dammit, I’m out of water again!  I contemplate if I have time to hit the water bubbler again and decide I probably shouldn’t risk it.  Which means I had plenty of time.  After a few more minutes, the producer gets back from her break, our guy wishes us all good luck and sends us in.

We sit in chairs around the perimeter of a small room.  The producer tells us to stand at the back of the room when she calls our name and sing a verse and a chorus.  Hmm.  The verses to Sooner or Later are 2 lines long, and the choruses are 2-3 lines long.  A few people go up, and I can tell by the order of the paper work that I will be 3rd to last.  So much for getting it over with quickly.  A few people sing much more than a verse and a chorus, but the producer says nothing.  So, I decide I will go with 2 of each when it’s my turn, since they’re short.  Just before my turn, Ilya, the only boy in our group, a 17 year old from Hoboken (Belgium, not NJ), stands up and sings Fly Me To The Moon, snapping his fingers to the beat.  Everyone in the room is tapping their feet.

Then it’s my turn.  I stand up on my jello legs.  When I start to sing, my nerves don’t get the best of me, and I don’t get pitchy.  Yay!  And then.  On the second chorus.  I flub the lyrics.  FUCK.  I stop and whisper “shit”.  And one of the woman in our group, and older woman with a lot of experience says “It’s okay, you got it”.  And the producer says it’s fine.  I start the chorus again, and finish my selection.  Apart from the flubbed lyrics, I feel good about my audition.  My voice was strong and in key, and I demonstrated how big my voice is and my ability to hold notes for a long time.  Ilya’s dad whispered that I was great when I sat back down.

The girl who went after me flubbed her lyrics, too.  I felt bad for her, but it was kinda nice not to be the only one.  At the end, the producer asks Ilya to stay behind and thanks the rest of us for auditioning.  We walk out, and have our wristbands removed.  We tell each other how great we all did as we make our way down the hall, and congratulate each other for having the courage to go through with it in the first place. No one cries.  No one complains.  I think being dismissed with 8 other women who can all sing takes the sting out of the rejection a little.  None of them sucked.  It just wasn’t what they were looking for.

I message Nick and tell him I’m finally on my way.  We make our way up the stairs, into the lobby, out into the baking heat, and head our separate ways.  I climb back into the car with a smile on my face.  It may not be the outcome that I wanted, but I still got a lot from the experience.

Things I learned from the audition process

1.  I have the best. husband. ever.  I already knew this.  But he just reaffirmed it in a very big way. His support and belief in me means the world to me.

2.  My friends and family are awesome!  Again, I already knew this.  But the outpouring of support as soon as they found out I was planning on doing this was amazing, nonetheless.

3.  I never ever ever want to audition for anything in this manner again.  I want to audition for things, and I want to be able to stand on a stage and sing.  But being herded around made me realize that in that type of setting, it is unlikely I will be heard.  I will stick to smaller stuff.

4.  I can take rejection.  The first time it felt like someone stabbed me in the gut.  For a few days.  And then I got over it.  This time, I was fine as soon as I walked out the door.  I’m sure there will be times when it will hit me harder, especially if there are any harsh words to go along with it, but I will survive it.  As Tony says, not everyone will like my singing.  And that’s fine.

5.  Getting over a fear is so very hard.  But it’s so very worth it.