Category: Audition Advice (Page 3 of 6)

Don’t look up there — free advice (solicited and un-), sidewalk hubris, and cake

January 31, 2023 / dancallaway

There’s a spot on Lansdowne Street right below Fenway Pahk’s Green Monstah. The pavement crack you avoid (for your mother’s spinal wellbeing) is covered in pigeon dookie.

I avoid this side of the street when I race-walk to the commuter rail station after convincing myself yet again that an 11-minute walk only takes 8. (and don’t wanna get kicked off the express for leaping on a moving train again.)

But yeah, the south side of Lansdowne —

It’s shady, so that means cold in winter. Uncheck.

It’s narrow, so awkward shoulder navigation with Sawx pilgrims. Uncheck.

And there’s the pigeon toilet problem.

The first time I strolled that side, I noted white-grey splats Jackson Pollocking the pavement, and though I knew it was grave folly, I looked skyward.

Just looked right on up — in case there was a fresh row of pigeons ready to evacuate on my Warby Parkers.

Luckily, the fowl ball club was scavenging Sausage Guy roll leftovers. But still. Poop on the ground? Maybe keep walking and don’t look up.

I was a deft doodoo dodger that day. But there were other times when feces found me.

One self-important pre-audition stroll in Central Park, I was saying my mantras and asking God to grant me superpowers when I felt a smatter-patter on my right backpack strap. When I noticed the dirty WhiteOut offering on my shoulder, I did have the good sense to laugh.

But yeah. We don’t walk near the doo, no no no no.

THEN — the other day I was giving my best Richard Simmons to the train (more time delusions) and saw a young woman navigating the path below the high northern stands.

Sure enough, she noticed the Columba caca, and just like I did that day, she paused. And performed a thorough rafter check.

She survived her hubris unscathed, but yeah: When there’s birdy turdy at your feet, keep your eyes groundward — if you have to get #2’d on, you want it on the noggin and not in the nostril.

Sometimes I wish there were a universal manual with clear-cut directions like —

Avoid the the Green Monstah undahbelly.

Straightforward, right?

Or when you learn to sing show tunes for folks. Things like —

Give your eyes a break every now and then from that spot on the wall they told you to pretend was a person. Looks stalkery.

or

Most times, you need less of what you’re calling breath support.

or

You’re gonna need some different vowels. Well-meaning folk told you to sing like you speak, but physics says nope.

You got something you wish somebody would just TELL you how to do? Hand you the secret dog-eared manual with the step-by-step?

While I can’t help you with dishwasher repair, I’ve ?ed plenty a bed when it comes to all things song and story (and helped several others change their sheets.)

So, I know some things.

And I’m a teachery sort, so I suffer from an incessant need to tell folks things I know.

My family loves it.

So, can you help me?

Here’s how —

Email me your voice mystery.

Hit reply, and say, “Dear TeacherDan, The singery thing I’ve never gotten a satisfying answer to is ….”

And let me know.

Noise making, audition room consternation, what am I even doing? ?

Send it my way.

I’ll write you back or make you a lil video that’ll scratch my unsatisfiable itch to share info.

This is for you if you’ve ever been like, “I wish I could just ASK a voicey person how to fix this and they’d answer my question without me plopping down a large slice of my rent.”

Seriously, get out your fingies and type your burning question.

And if you don’t remember anything else from today’s letter, remember this:

There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,
dan

ps Here are answers to questions you didn’t even ask me — all baking related.
The best chocolate cake recipe you’ll ever make. (It’s Ina Garten)
The best biscuit recipe you’ll ever bake. (not even from a Southerner ?)
And more baking — a terrific last minute delicious cheaty bread recipe.

pps You wanna hear some beautiful straight-from-the-heart sangin? Look what the YouTube algorithm delivered up to me this week: “She Used to Be Mine” sung by Sara Bareilles and Brandie Carlile.

ppps And sirriously. Write and ask anything singy, auditiony, your relationship to music-y. I’m HERE for it.

Choreplay ? — dishwasher’s empty. laundry’s folded. Alexa, play Barry White.

January 24, 2023 / dancallaway

Melissa and I can get all flirty birdy kicking around the house.

Ewwww, Dad. I know.

But I’m lucky. When someone tells you they like how those jeans look, it’s nice.

These days, such flirt-portunities appear like fleeting comets. Most of the time we can’t hear each other talk.

Someone’s being a T-Rex, demolishing the other’s train, or belting “The Nutcracker March.”

I see Melissa’s lips move and hear sounds, but intelligible phonemes? No chance.

So– when there’s quiet —

When “Bluey”’s on, the boxed wine flows, the spaghetti burbles, and “A Case of You” twings through the Bose, we shnuggle by the stove and share spicy idears about what could happen after the boys go to bed.

Then we rendezvous at 8pm in our noiseless house… (except for our neighbors. What’s going ON over there?) …we rendezvous craving just one thing: induced coma.

Friends try to tell you how it is keeping young children alive, but just like the MLM pitch your friend assured you was an antioxidant juice party, you don’t know ’til you’re there.

So, I stoke the hottie home fires in other ways:

Step 1: I get up before the sun.

Step 2: get some breakfast in the crew

Step 3: may do a load of laund-a-ry.

Step 4: unload the dishes, put the flatware in the drawer

Step 5: Get dinner in that Instant Pot jive

Step by step gonna get to you girl. ?

Then my phone BLOWS UP allll day ? about how hawt that toasty load of laundry is while the house gets aroma(n)tic with my special slow-cooker turkey chili spice blend. ?

I’m good at doing stuff for other folks.

I’m crap at doing stuff for myself.

If it weren’t for Melissa, I’d rarely wash my face, and I’d sprout Christopher Lloyd professor-brows from my frontispiece like a possessed wire fox terrier.

You in this club, too?

Not the Doc Brow Crowd.

The Doing Good Things for Yourself Oh Wait I Forgot Society. The dehydrated, crusty-knuckled, still-gotta-pee brigade.

Oh, you’re the treasurer. And volunteered to take minutes. Yes, I see you.

Ahem. May I ask you to put down your Robert’s Rules of Order for a sec?

? Thanks — Now — can you think back to a far away time and tell me —

What’s the last good/nourishing thing you did for you?

(I’m telling myself it’s the bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios I’m eating (I even added roasted almonds), but that’s not what I’m getting at.)

What’s something you’ve done for you that’s investy?

I’m asking you because we’re here by the coffee percolator at the Society meeting, and you might be saying things to yourself like —

❌ I don’t actually need that class at Jen Waldman’s studio my friend raved about.

? I should figure that out on my own. I don’t need Mike Ruckles to tell me my breath’s jacked. I already got a BFA. And there’s YouTube.

? I can’t know this is worth my cash. I got inflated city rent to pay and $10 eggs to buy. Besides, my vocal coach took two phone calls MID-SESSION last time.

I understand. (That vocal coach bit really happened. More than once.)

But sirrously, remember the last time you did the investy thing?

Did you get surprised? You learn an unexpected oh-yeeeaah? Or did the path light up showing you a step you couldn’t see before?

Or maybe you felt that honey-buzz in your guts because you did something kind. For you.

Years ago, I plopped down money I was scared to spend to coach with LA Chutspa Menschela Barbara Deutsch when I needed to grow my studio biz. Like, exorbitant-interest-wolves-at-the-door need.

She told me two things that cleared the fog and helped me breathe again; and 14(?) years later I keep those tools top of the box.

Hey, I have an idea. ?

In case you feel your heart tapping you on the shoulder saying:

❤️‍?: “I wanna feel freedom, release, express, get heard, enjoy, feel great, heal, and sing some tunes!

“Oh, and singing tickles our vagus nerve and helps us chill the eff out. It’s science!”

You got choices:

? hop in the shower and belt “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

☎️ call your in-network voice care provider and set up a consultation

or

⭐️?⭐️ email me back.

While skewl has me spring semester zany, and the Feb Special-Special crew is full, there remain some rare, cozy corners of my calendar waiting for us to nestle in and make shameless sounds.

You can celebrate like my friend David who SOS’d me on Instagram last month.

All I did was send him a 5 minute video with some idears. He just took it from there.

Or we can get in there all heart melty like I roll with the BoCo kids.

? This is why I’m the luckiest — I get to teach the best kids.

And there are the endless opportunities for grinning and belting like Michael Tatlock and I do on a Thursday evening:

The party’s hot, so get in here with us. nnn-ts nnn-ts nnn-ts ?

Before you know it, you’ll be getting all manner of vocal chore hacks, and like Ina Garten pouring a scalding pot of cavatappi into a colander for Jeffrey, you’ll muse amid the rising steam, “How easy was that?”

Just tickle this link or hit reply.

I’ll write you back, ask you questions, and we’ll work it all out.

Can’t wait!

And whatever scintillating chore you’re fixing to do right now, always remember, there’s one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Now go do something nice — for you! ?

love much,
dan

ps You know I wouldn’t leave you hanging about the vibrato-limp wrist connection. I also call it rubber chicken.

Here’s the video I sent to David.

pps The folks mentioned above are top notch.
Jen Waldman Studio — whole hearted acting/singing/artist training
Mike Ruckles Voice AND piano wowee zowee
and
Barbara Deutsch wise career coach and somebody you just wanna listen to ?

ppps Wait! You were gonna email me about that 1-on-1 time? Just click here and press send. I already wrote the email for you.

Just pissed in Plymouth — That’s not what a bowling pin’s for. And I want my money back on the New England summah.

November 29, 2022 / dancallaway

We visited Plymouth (the one with the Rock) last summer.

We saw the Mayflower

and the Moo-flower. Here are the boys and Gram.

We learned how the Wampanoag grew food and hollowed canoes.

We found out only rich pilgrims had floors, and Noah stumped one of docents with a 17th Century dental hygiene question. (Though her dialect and character commitment were impressive.)

The boys went deep on colonist cosplay,

and while Noah continued world building, Jude and I set up pins and a leather ball for a bowling game outside. Short-lived. (As was the knock-the-hoop-down-the-lane-with-a-stick game. Though Jude was impressed by my make-the-hula-hoop-come-back-to-you trick.)

Then, I managed a dispute over who would gallop on the one stick-horse to rule them all.

I finally sat my sweaty self down for a rest when a family festooned in LA Dodger gear rolled into the medicinal herb garden.

Two boys belonging to this gaggle picked up the bowling pins and the leather-bound ball.

And played baseball.

They pitched the ball and thwacked line drives that nearly decapitated the lavender shrubs.

Those implements were meant for King James era BOWLING!

Where was their parent????

Oh. There.

Snapping iPhone pics and chortling as if she were about to exclaim, “Now that’s what I call outside-the-bowl thinking!”

I gulped water from Jude’s Elmo cup and seethed in the mid-afternoon humidity. (New England was NOT coming through on my 85-degrees-tops summer dreams.)

But, seriously, what was my problem with these kids?

In our own house, we’ve tried to make the rules simple — “It’s okay unless it hurts people or property.”

These Blue-Crew-capped preteens were damaging neither. Not yet, anyway.

But, it felt disrespectful. Someone hand-made those pins and ball so kids could old-times bowl in the designated area, and these knuckle-noggins were rolling in like they owned the reproduction settlement.

Reminded me of bartending in London. I could hear a fellow American two streets away swaggering like the corrupt sheriff in a B-Western.

Oblivious to the culture they were visiting and barking questions like, “Hey, where’s the ice and my free refill? You don’t have to tip here, right? That’s cool.”

In both instances — bowling baseball and bothered British bartending — there was a common experience: stress, anxiety, and contraction.

These folks weren’t following my rules. And my rules rest on objective fact and acute observation, of course.

Those are bowling pins in Plymouth, therefore bowl.

This is London. Ice in your drink isn’t a given; you dry your clothes on a rack in the kitchen; and the time I saw the woman on the Tube silently mouthing the recipe for her Yorkshire pudding to the man opposite her gave me the hint to turn down the voice volume in most public spaces.

Ah! People!

Look behind you and hold the door if someone’s coming. If someone holds the door for you, say thank you. If someone lets you in front of them in traffic, throw up a hand. And for God’s sake, stop talking on your phone on the train! No one wants to hear you yammer all the way through Wellesley!

Here’s the ouchy part, though.

The ways I yell at these clue-free ingrates in my brain? Ever so clandestinely, those are the grumpy royal decrees I hand down to me.

To escape this tyranny, I just wanna find the nearest Mayflower. Only I can’t take a miserable, stormy voyage on a cramped ship away from myself.

That’s why there’s night cereal, YouTube, and podcasts.

When it comes to our singing, the rules get real mean.

That’s not the right sound.

I’m not breathing right.

My break is terrible.

I’m stuck! I’ll never stop thinking about my technique!

We stop ourselves from making a sound before we can even let one rough-draft through our body.

RULES!

Stuff needs to sound a certain way, and we need to make sure it’s gonna sound that way before it leaves our face.

Or else?

Embarrassment, feeling rejected, calling ourselves a failure, believing we’ll never get it. Telling ourselves we won’t gain the skills to express what we want when the adrenaline’s pulsing; therefore, we won’t be able to do the thing we dream about (and don’t reveal to anyone because they’ll think we’re crazy.)

It’s a self-perpetuating game of torture thought pinball.

How about this, though? What if you set the rule page aside?

What if you scrawled out that title with your favorite crayon and wrote, “Choices”?

Hmmmmm.

If I could make any sound here, what kind of sound would I choose?

What kind of breath would I take if I realized, “Well, if that’s love, it comes at much too high a coooooost?”

What if I could try different paths through the tricky pitches? And let myself fall and get up?

I wonder if there’s a way to think about technique AND the story in a both-and kind of situation.

When you ask questions like this, things lighten up, and you see places you can step. Before you know it, you’ve walked a few paces, and something that feels like fun and satisfaction bubbles up.

Me likey!

(And if you need specific help, email me for a lesson. I’m end-of-semester busy, but we’ll figure out a time. Just reply and ask.)

So, I invite you to notice this week.

When does your rule committee rear its many heads? Notice how it feels inside when you say things like “I would never….,” “Why would they do that?….” and “What’s WRONG with them?”

If you sit and watch for 9 seconds, you’ll prolly see where you berate you in similar fashion.

I’m realizing that 45% of my letters to you end up asking, “How are you talking to you?”

And it’s because it’s that important. The environment you cultivate in your own garden is everything when it comes to what kind of medicinal herbs you grow. Just look out for bowling ball line drives.

But yeah, just notice. Slow your breath. Soften your face. Melt your shoulders. And watch. Who do you like to slam the rules on? And where are you slamming them on yourself?

What if you wrote CHOICES in Sea Green at the top of your page and asked again?

Try it. And as my father-in-law says in his deep, Rhode Island baritone, “Enjoy. God bless.”

Because it’s true. There’s just one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing. And you’ll sing it with joy if you give your voice a chance to try a thing or three.

Love much,
dan

ps I’ve been enjoying these vintage playlists on YouTube — good for your holiday mixes in case Mariah’s invading your brain already.

pps Did I tell you I’m thankful for you? I am. ?

ppps Check out the Voice Collective on the IG — two terrific MFAs from the BoCo Cassi and Will laying out terrific tools, tips, and voicey love.

Who’s it for? — How I got more peace in my head and made the committee my ally.

November 22, 2022 / dancallaway

Journey with me back to my 20s any time I got an audition appointment. And witness me careen through the 12(?) stages of casting madness.

Stage 1: (212) area code calls. Hello, BroadWAY?

2: What’s the project? When’s it open? Who’s directing? What clever joke will I use for my custom opening night favors?

3: Wait, I have to learn the audition packet.

4: Better call my acting teacher, vocal coach, and numerologist.

5: Wait, look at the sides and the music!

6: Obsess. “What’re the table people looking for?” Examine the character breakdown forty-seven times to unlock the cypher that’ll reveal the perfect acting choices. (The numerologist didn’t come through on this.)

7: Finally, learn the material — enough so that I think that I know it, but not so much that I pour too much heart into it and get disappointed. And not enough to be in-my-body prepared when audition adrenaline kicks in. I can always blame it on self-sabotage.

8: Get to the audition right on time, maybe 90 seconds late depending on subways, humidity, and elevators.

9: Go in, smile, do the thing too quickly, look at my papers too much, and check in for signs of validation from the table folk.

10: Leave. Replay the event. Analyze every comment, question, and yawn for the next three days.

11: Check my phone every seven minutes to see if I missed a call from a (212).

12: The phone rings! It’s another audition. Repeat.

You need a breath? I do.

That’s better.

Last week, I chatted with a grad student who came to Boston from NYC; he was still adjusting to the SLOWER pace in Boston. I said I felt like New York was a neurosis nursery.

Not only were your hangups welcomed, but you could find two or three folks to sit with you at the Renaissance Diner and jib jab about commitment ambivalence for several hours.

The other morning on the train, I saw pieces of the afore-described brain torture show up.

I was batting around a couple book ideas. As I brainstormed, I wrote, “I’m afraid I’ll spin away at these ideas and then have nothing to SHOW for my work.”

Then I wrote down, “Show who?”

Well, I did write “whom,” but I didn’t wanna look like a complete grammar tool.

Isn’t that funny? That expression? “Nothing to show for all my hard work.”

Seriously, to whoM are we showing these outcomes?

The 12 steps of tryout crazy you read above — all of those brain-guish exercises rely on imagining that someone’s looking at you.

Many of us walk around with an imaginary committee opining on our choices, thoughts, and dreams.

Comprised of a junior high bully, the teacher who said the thing that time, a nemesis, and chaired by a composite Disney villain step-parent, this imaginary crew influences our day to day.

You get so used to them that you act (or don’t) anticipating their reactions.

It’s exhausting.

May I offer a suggestion?

Thank them.

Why did you make up this crew in the first place?

They probably started as your safety commission–a benevolent team that helped you navigate your early years: this big person likes it when you smile; this big person prefers you stay quiet; whatever you do, don’t tell this big person how you really feel about body piercings.

We become big people with our little people still running the back-end operations.

So, that’s why we say thank you.

This committee’s been seated to help us steer clear of all manner of life-threatening banishment.

Their continued influence does get us all wiggle waggle when our bodies look like adults, though, doesn’t it?

Rather than our vision resting calmly inside us looking out to the world, we jerk the cables around and lock in to selfie stick mode. Then we’re selfie stuck.

So here’s some help —

?? Breathe. Through your nose. Small inhale, long exhale. About a minute.

? Say, “Thank you, committee-that-I-made-up-to-keep-me-safe.”

? Face the lens outward.

Repeat as needed.

Then you’ll open-hearted see the outside while you have grace for your inside.

You’ll say things like, “Self, you get to try things out; Self, go ahead feel your feels; Self, it’s cool how you got to show up on the planet with all these other billions of selves.”

It’s a sweet place to be, I’ve found.

Hey, by the way, how’s your singing coming along? Are you enjoying it?

How’re your auditions in this post apocalypse self-tape landscape? (apocalypse in Greek actually means uncovering, and wow have things been uncovered, right?)

If you’ve hit snags, I can help you.

Email me and let me know what’s going on. Let’s talk.

If you’re in NYC or LA and want to meet with a real live human, I can recommend folks.

Or we can always hop on the Zoom and hash it out. Write me and ask me. Hit that reply button. I’m here for you.

Above all, remember that there’s only one you, and folks do indeed need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

dan

ps Happened upon this Tim Minchin feature on YouTube (You may know him as the composer for MATILDA). He talks about the fame experience as well as the camera-turned-toward-you phenomenon. Interesting journey.

pps Have you ever read the Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle? I did yesterday, and one of the things encapsulates this dual-vision thing I’m talking about: “If I’m not for me, who am I? Nobody. Yet, if I’m only for me, what am I? Nothing. If not now, when?” He uses a lot more exclamation marks, though.

ppps And remember if you’re struggling with roadblocks vocal, creative, or career path, email me. Your singing can be free, your creativity flowy, and your work satisfying and clear. Tell me what’s going on. I’ll help you.

What’d I step on? ? Ack! wooop $*@# BLUUURG — I’m okaaaaay

June 8, 2022 / dancallaway

Noah and I explored the bracing waters of Nantucket Sound this week.

We examined seaweed samples, spied horseshoe crabs, and spotted shiny shells saying heeeeey from under the sparkly water.

It was one of those supersaturated perfection moments.

–where the self-conscious part of you wishes there were a photographer so you could prove to you friends, “No, really, this was the perfect New England Beach Day.”

This lil PB and J snacker’ll give you a clue.

Check that posture! He’s always calling out my slump.

While we waded, I was feeling the squishy sand through my toesies and pointing out a sailboat when my heel encountered something that was not seaweed.

Something springy, slimy, and vigorous writhed its way under the arch of my foot as if to say, “Hey! I’m LIVIN’ here!”

I acknowledged its communication with a falsetto WOOOP and a splashy hitch kick.

“Daddy! What’s wrong?” Noah asked.

“I stepped on something!” I explained.

“Daddy, why are we walking out of the water?”

“I need a lil break.”

“Daddy, what did you step on?”

“I don’t know, buddy.”

“What did it look like?”

“I didn’t stay close enough to look.”

As we toweled off on the beach, Noah was trying to work out why I hadn’t paused to observe the offended sea creature.

He repeated, “Daddy, what was that?” and “Daddy, were you scared?”

“Yes, buddy, I was startled. I didn’t know what I’d stepped on.”

I could see brain jigsaws interlock as he added, “Oh, Daddy’s scared of some things,” and “There’s stuff Daddy doesn’t know,” to his file labeled “The Way Things Are.” (Remember that from Babe?)

The ocean is unabsorbably beautiful, reminds you how teeny you are, and hosts all kinds of beings most human feet don’t wanna touch.

What you can’t see can be scawwy.

Like vocal technique.

It’s not straightforward like, “You put your left foot in, “ or “Press these two keys to start ‘Chopsticks.'”

It’s your whole body asking several muscle groups in your torso to play nice with largely involuntary muscles in and around your throat collaborating with more interdependent functions than you knew existed from your throat to your lips.

Your tongue alone has 8 different muscles.

Craysssy.

And it’s not like you can just look down and check if you’re doing it right.

The good news, though, is that there are indicators you can rely on, and there are things your body already knows how to do.

You wanna try an experiment and see?

(inspired by a terrific thesis by one of the MFA grads I got to advise. Thanks, Evan Rees.)

Here you go. (May wanna do this alone or on a busy street/train platform where no one will likely hear or care.)

? Pretend you’re holding a lil baby or a sweet animal, and sing a lullaby or a scale on [u]/oooo.
? Sing it in different keys, and notice that your voice naturally knows how to soothe this sweet lil being.
??‍♂️ Now pretend that a malevolent person tries to hurt your beebee.
? Call out, “Hey!”
?? Follow that impulse again, and slide ‘Heeey” on an interval, a fourth or a fifth.

What’d you notice?

Your voice is built-in ready when you’re meeting an unfolding sitch.

Your neurons know how to soothe a scared puppy and how to repel an invader.

This intel is crucial for theatre singers because the circumstances you’re imagining change the shape of your vocal tract.

Now, can you tell me something?

What is your number one vocal/storytelling question right now?

Because if you email me back and ask me, I can help you out.

I mean it. Hit reply and atst — vibrato, breathing, unmanageable stage farting. I’ve heard it all.

or

If you could make up a magical class or voice lesson, what problem would it solve for you?

It can be an impossible ask like, “I want my class to earn me a Pulitzer Prize for Journalism.” I mean, I can’t help you with that, but I do wanna know what your perfect class would do for you (or any singing storyteller you care about.)

Email me back and tell me.

And remember most of all, there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

ps We’re heading back to regular land life today, so I’ll have some lesson avail. If you wanna sing freer, love what you’re doing, and bring joy to the room, email me back, and we’ll get to work.

pps Have you watched Joe Papp in Five Acts on PBS yet? I haven’t, but I plan to because all my snobby theayter friends say it’s terrific.

ppps This was clearly a working vacation since I also shot a series of looks for an upcoming fragrance they’ve asked me to promote. ? They’re still focus-grouping, but I think it’s gonna be called Panic at the Seashore.

Pizza Box Solution — and breakfast tricks for your singing AND ? poached eggs

June 2, 2022 / dancallaway

You know those “before” parts of infomercials where the person is having an existential crisis?

They’re trying to hang their trousers in their cluttered closet, and they trip over a stray belt and crumple into an anguish heap on the bedroom floor.

Or they’re incinerating a grilled cheese in an aluminum pan over a red-hot electric stove, coughing as they’re enveloped in smoke and clasping their ears as the alarm screams?

I found this one, too. This gent’s physical comedy skills are top notch. I give him a full Sham-wow.

We’ve all lived the problem stage before the low-laryngeal baritone voiceover says, “Introduuuuciiiing…..”

That’s a joke in our house when we’re struggle-bussing in plain view.

We say, “I’m an infomercial over here.”

That was me a couple mornings ago.

Even while it was happening, I said to Melissa, “I’m going to write about this.”

Then, later that afternoon, I said, “What was that thing that happened this morning when I said I was an infomercial?”

Neither of us could remember.

I clearly missed the one-time-offer for the memory supplement.

So, I decided I’d share three useful, unrelated tips that I DID remember this week that I thought would make your life (artistically and otherwise) better.

I mean, some of these are even directly related to singing and auditioning.

? Self-Tape Pizza Box Confidence and Freedom Booster

It’s very clear — the self tape is here to stay. I did one this very week.

I like to be off-book for an audition because, you know, looking up and acting and stuff.

But this week proved prohibitive in the grey matter department.

I wasn’t quite showtime ready, so I used my trusty cue-card sides trick.

I’m surprised I haven’t heard more people share this. Or maybe I’m not reading the right Broadway World online community chats.

This is what you do —

Type up your sides in bullshit-bullshit-MY-LINE-MY-LINE format. Make your lines super easily readable

Leave a gap in the middle of the page.

Print.

Dig that Amazon Prime box out of your recycling, cut out a paper-sized rectangle, and glue your sides to the cardboard.

Cut or Exacto knife a rectangle in the middle or side of your pages that’s bigger than your camera/phone lens.

Clip these to your phone or tripod in whatever creative way that allows your eye line to be just off camera to your scene partner. A strategically placed music stand can also save you rigging headaches here.

And hit record.

And don’t do too many takes. I find the second one is almost always the best one. You peak, and then it’s downhill a lot of the time.

If you’re a visual learner, this is what my last round looked like. And I didn’t need the cuts after all. I used a music stand.

? Audition Song What-Did-You-Have-for-Breakfast Trick

Your song coach told you that time to come up with an imaginary scene partner, pick a spot on the wall, pretend that was their face, and go.

Thing is, you and I have all seen the singers who get stuck on that spot and end up singing “On the Street Where You Live” like a stalker who finally cornered their stalkée.

In real life, our eyeballs move because our thoughts move.

So, here’s the tip to get you feeling more like a human when you sing.

Think about what you had for breakfast.

Now think about what you had for breakfast and notice where your eyeballs move.

That’s your memory spot, one of the places where your eyes move when you go into your internal brain space.

When you do that, I’m all like, “What’re you thinking in there?”

We go in there all the time to pull out memories, grab that word we can’t quite bring up in the rolodex, or to ruminate over that awkward interaction we had with the woman at the grocery store.

(Seriously, though, Melissa almost saw fisticuffs in the Market Basket produce department yesterday. Someone papaya-blocked somebody, I guess. I don’t have to tell you people done lost they mind these days.)

Back to your breakfast.

Yeah, make your memory eyeball spot a frequently visited friend.

Another cheap trick aspect of this — if you haven’t had time to do proper homework on your material (or you’ve practiced professional procrastination), this is a good way to allow some specifics from your subconscious to populate your storytelling.

Just be prepared for random thoughts about pop tarts or second-day T-shirts with suspect pit smell to emerge from the mind sea.

??? Sometimes you gotta pick up two handfuls of dead leaves and throw them back.

I took the boys to the town forest yesterday to search for the witches’ caves.

I think they’re cute.

Noah discovered the joy of picking up dirt and leaves and throwing them at Daddy.

Usually down the back of my cargo camos when I was bending down to pick Jude up from his latest rock-trip.

“Noah, stop!” my humorless, tired morning self said.

He couldn’t stop laughing. And throwing more leaves.

So…

I remembered my days as a kid when we turned the tobacco field behind our house into a GI Joe war zone and had dirt clod fights. The furrows made good trenches, and we’d hurl dried clumps of red clay at each other hoping there wasn’t too sharp a rock hiding inside.

It was good, dirty fun.

And a laundry nightmare for my mom.

But I remembered. And it was on.

We ran our way out of the woods hurling leaves at each other and laughing all the way.

Well, except for the time Noah kept throwing dirt down my pants, and I got angry that he wouldn’t stop, took a wrong turn, panicked a little, told everybody to just hush for a second, and had to get out my phone to figure out which way south was.

Other than that, it was a blast. And there was a lot of dirt to scrub out of heads at bath time.

The moral — when would a good ole yes-and serve the situation?

Later that day, Noah said, “Daddy, I loved it when you started playing with the leaves with us. Daddy, why’d you do that?”

Note to self— maybe check for more opportunities to chill out and have a lil basic fun.

There you go.

Next time you’re feeling all

Take some time to

? chuckle at self

?✂️ organize your self-tape supply closet

? practice thinking about what you had for breakfast

and

? be on the lookout for quality leaf fight opportunities

And in the meantime, remember there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the song only you can sing.

LOVE MUCH (I’m belting),

Dan

ps speaking of breakfast, I tried this Julia Child trick for poached eggs, and after a couple of operator errors, I’m here to report it works well.

Pro tip, use a kitchen towel to help you push the safety pin into the egg. You’ll see.

pps Here’s some history on the witches’ caves in our town forest.

ppps Remember if you need any lessoning or vocal troubleshooting this summer, I’m zoomable. Just email me back here, and we’ll set up a time for you. I’m here if you need me. ?

Ungoogle-ables: Train revolution revelations and YouTube. You too?

May 5, 2022 / dancallaway

One morning this week, I woke up and tip toed (so as not to wake the bairns) my way down to the coffee maker.

I got things brewing, drank some water, and pulled my phone from the charger in the living room.

The little white arrow in the red box beckoned me, and I obediently tapped.

ummm

I scrolled through the offerings and got increasingly agitated.

None of the click bait headlines were baiting my click.

“Algorithm, why have you let me down?”I queried.

[I’ve logged more YouTube screen time since the invasion in Ukraine. Okay, that’s a lie. My YouTube time was already ample, but recent geopolitical events have goosed my stats.]

I comb the site for a reputable news source to tell me that Vladimir Putin has been vaporized.

My searches have proven fruitless thus far.

But that morning, I took note.

I was enmeshed with and dependent on my AI frienemy.

My internal monologue: “YouTube, you know I enjoy a good “A Closer Look” with Seth Myers, but come on, the Android monitors my every word. I’d think you’d understand my viewing need nuances as I wait for the BOGO Café Verona to percolate.“

Then

later that morning as I took the train into work,

I did something utterly shocking.

Revolutionary.

I looked out the window.

I knoooow. Right?

I sat in my seat, and I watched the boulders, muddy Natick backyards, bougie Wellesley boutiques, and reservoirs go by.

I wondered, “Who lives there?”

“Who dumped that vinyl couch by the tracks??”

and

“How did that graffiti artist shimmy down that bridge?”

Reminded me of when I played Philadelphia with Phantom, and I stayed with the Ledger family out in Malvern. I took the SEPTA every show day, and all I had for ocular occupation was Pillars of the Earth and the Bryn Mawr station.

But nowadaze, you know the drill.

We’re all up in our screens.

I’m looking at a screen as I type this to you right now…on the train. (Although I’m attempting to type and look out the window, too.)

See?

And what are we missing? And what mysteries are we not getting to be baffled by? Like that couch!

That morning waiting for the coffee, I realized I’d given my agency to the algorithm.

I didn’t even take the step of going to the google machine to type in, “When is Vladimir Putin scheduled to be vaporized?”

Nope, like some laboratory mammal, I let the YouTube slow-drip the control group serum to my eager limbic receptors.

[***Quick tangent*** The train conductor just said, “Wellesley Squa-ah next, no no, Wellesley Fahms next. Wellesley Fahms.”***

That’ll never get old to my silly hillbilly ears.]

But yeah—the algorithm and the train window (The title of my next musical)— They got me thinking about you.

You know how we actory singery folk get when it comes to jobs?

Who’s gonna hire me? What’s trending? What do the table people want? What Olivia Rodrigo hook should I mash up with “Poor Wandering One” and a triple pirouette?

?

We’re waiting around all Daisy and Violet belting, “Who will love me as I aaaaaaam???”

But here’s the good news.

You don’t got to get this job, and I’ll put money on the fact that you’re not a conjoined twin. (In-Sideshow reference from above. Sorry not sorry.)

Therefore, there is no physical constraint placed upon you that would dictate any limitation on your creative path.

I’m surrious.

The thing that scares us the most (at least me, it does) is that there is SO MUCH possibility, not an opportunity drought.

Just ask me.

I submitted a few self-tapes this spring for summer work.

I was proud of em.

Response?

???

So, I could look at that and think,

(Molto drammatico)
“There just isn’t a place for me this summer. No opportyuuuunities.”

But thing is, there is. And there are.

I can make them up.

I can make up about five right now, and that’s not even counting garage organization and tax filing.

What’s coming to mind for you right now?

What idears did you talk into your Google Keep?

What if you opened that note and talked a few more ideas underneath that?

You might come up with something crazy and fun.

It might not pay your bills. Might even cost you.

But what if it knits community and connection for you and your people?

What if it’s the thing that makes someone laugh, cry, or feel beauty and meaning?

In my experience, that transcends a project’s ability to make money.

I mean, Anyone Can Whistle closed on Broadway after five minutes, but dang I’m grateful Mr. S wrote that score.

And if you make money, too, I’m so happy for you.

And then there’s this cray cray notion —

What if you sat and looked out the window?

I know, right?

Now, that’s the thing we’re all relentlessly fending off while gazing at these 2D configurations.

Sitting. Looking. Noticing questions that aren’t google-able.

It’s way too Rilke for most of us.

I encourage you to try it, and I’d love to hear how it goes. Maybe take a pic out your window with that phone you’re not looking at.

In the meantime, remember, for reals— There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

ps Today’s our Noah Bear’s fourth birthday. I can’t even believe it. I even typed “first“ in that last sentence. Our sweet miracle Cinco de Mayo baby.

pps This is what I meant when I said “way too Rilke.” Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

One thing that’s not a question? You’re terrific. Now go look out a window ?.

Whose Idea WAS This?

April 12, 2022 / dancallaway

? The Commutah Rail was only runnin’ four double deckahs a couple weeks ago, so I wondered where everybody was gonna sit as the train dinged its way to the Framingham platform.

When the conductor got off the train, he confirmed my query when he smiled through his mask, “I dunno where you’re all gonna sit.”

After months of low pandemic ridership, this sardine situation was new.

But I spotted an open seat next to a kind looking person and asked if I could park myself next to her.

By the time we reached Natick, I knew she was going in for an educational meeting for school counselors, and she knew I was going in to teach young voices to screlt at the BoCo.

I learned about her background in childhood development, her teaching for future guidance counselors, and her research in gender; and her husband was working on a musical documentary project tracing the history of suffrage in the United States. Only in Boston, right??

We had a delightful chat, so I invited her and her hubster to come to my faculty recital. She recommended several great Boston restaurants, and after all that we finally told each other our names.

It was a great morning getting to know Barb.

Then last Saturday at my recital, I spotted her and her husband on the second row in Seully Hall.

As I sang the Strauss portion of the program, I saw them wiping their cheeks in my peripheral vision, and as I tried to keep all my German images straight in my head, I also thought, “If they hadn’t run just the four double deckahs that day, I wouldn’t have met Barb.”

Here’s a shot from the action on Saturday. 🙂

We got to chat afterward, and both of them reflected on how terrific it was to be in a hall with live performance again. We’ve all been starved for these chances to hear music and heal. It’s gonna be a while in recovery, I have a feeling.

This whole week had me thinking about you, though. As my recital approached, I kept asking in my brain, “Whose idea WAS this anyway??”

Do you do that? Start a creative idea full of excitement and then about two-thirds of the way down the development or rehearsal road, you imagine loading up the El Camino and driving as fast as you can in the opposite direction?

That’s all of us.

Singing songs for folks takes a lot of practice, and you never know what’s gonna shake down in the moment of the thing. There’s trust and faith involved after all that prep.

All this to say I think you should still make stuff up and do it.

And invite all the folks to it.

You never know when you’re gonna meet Barbara on the train and give her and her husband a much-needed afternoon of healing music.

Healing. Or as Jude used to say— Heawing.

That’s the highest goal that we have as singers. We breathe in free oxygen, then we get to vibrate that back out in artfully crafted frequencies.

Keep doing that.

Listen for folks around you who inspire you and light up your soul. That’s who you’re supposed to be working with.

My incredible collaborator ? for Saturday, Scott Nicholas—I heard him play master’s program auditions at school and thought to myself what is this gut-honey wizardry I’m hearing??

So, I emailed him and told him his piano playing made me feel bumble bees in my nethers, and would he wanna make music together(?). He said hell yes, and now this is the beginning of a terrific partnership.

So that’s the lesson for this week. Keep making stuff up, putting things together, and invite all the folks you can. Someone will be there wiping tears that they needed to cry out for several months.

And in these times, we all have a big reserve of those.

Most of all, remember that there’s only one of you, and folks need to hear the story that only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

ps Noah and Jude warming up backstage before the recital

ps and this is the gold of getting to be a teacher — students who become your friends and take the bus form NYC to come see your recital. Love you, Justin Norwood

I’m Sorry and Other Gifts — a theatre moment I’ll never forget, and why you gotta keep singing

March 8, 2022 / dancallaway

I’ve been working with a student on a song from High Fidelity this semester called “I’m Sorry.” Or “Laura, Laura.” I don’t know which is the official title.

The first reminds me of the dramatic strains of The Platters’ 1954 hit. That’s not the one we’re working on. But side note for your own research—The Platters recorded some great tunes.

The song I am talking about, I first heard in a staged reading of High Fidelity back in LA, geez, like 12 years ago produced by Musical Theatre Guild, the terrific company I was a member of.

You may know the film starring John Cusack which was based on a Nick Hornby novel. Musicals and their provenance, I tell you.

Aaaaanyway—By Act 2, the lead guy, vinyl record store owner Rob, has a Damascus Road experience and realizes how his constant side-glance to the bigger better thing took his gaze off of the invaluable love in front of him.

It’s a pretty rock ballad, and my student, Nick, sings it great. I keep yelling at him to take out gratuitous riffs, but if I were as good a riffer as he is, I’d put too many in, too.

I told him how I’d never forgotten this one moment at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California.

After all the boollshit this guy puts his ex-girlfriend, Laura, through, he finally sees it, looks right at her, and tells her all he’s done that hurt her and their relationship.

And this is why I’ll never forget the moment in the theatre.

Will Collyer, the actor playing Rob, and Robin DeLano, the actor playing Laura, stood downstage center. Will looked right into Robin’s face, standing profile to the audience and just sang the whole song right to her.

That was the blocking–look at her and sing the song.

I’ll never forget it.

After the lesson teaching the song that day, I had to throw up a social post reminding the director, Richard Israel, how that was such a special two-plus minutes.

It was heartwarming to read all the comments from friends who remembered that moment, too.

You got a memory like that? A sweet-savory morsel of theatre experience that arrives like a surprise chocolate box when you hear a certain song?

That’s soul medicine. It’s beauty. It’s gratitude, and it’s us recognizing us in each other.

Just imagine how things might look different if we were able to do more of that.

All this to say–what we get to do matters to folks.

More than one student has come into the studio this past week wondering how their pursuit of being a musical storyteller matters in the face of the unbelievable suffering happening in the world.

I wonder the same thing.

While we’ve learned in the last 2 years that getting to stand on a stage in front of people depends on a ton of things going well, it doesn’t mean that what we do is frivolous or a luxury.

When Will stood on the Alex stage and sang that ballad to Robin, he opened his heart and shared the deep healing that happens when we tell another human that we understand how our actions hurt them.

To stand in that place with open hands and ask another human to forgive you is a gift.

To hear someone say, “Yes, what you did hurt me, and I’m going to erase that from my ledger over here,” is Tiger Balm for your heart.

And when we forgive each other on stage singing beautiful melodies with stick-to-your-feels images, all that music and poetry psychs out the stubborn, cross-armed bridge troll in our brain, and we start to set our hearts a little freer.

I mean, you’re a musical theatre nerd. Haven’t you asked yourself if you woulda said you gave Valjean the sliver candlesticks like that low-voiced priest did?

This question–do we keep singing while the world burns?–also brings up our universal human need to practice comparative suffering.

I teach another student who received a challenging medical diagnosis just before starting his studies at the BoCo. When I ask, “How you doin’ today?” he’ll often respond, “Aw, could be worse. People are going through much more.”

Yes, both statements are true.

And then I remind him that just because the guy next to me is a triple amputee doesn’t mean I don’t hit the cut on my hand with peroxide, Neosporin, and a Paw Patrol bandaid.

I’ve been trying to hold my weeping at the news footage of the Ukrainian father sobbing at the head of his 16-year-old-son’s murdered body together with the deep gratitude, guilt, and relief I feel when I tuck my boys into a safe, warm bed at night.

I can’t imagine his suffering, and looking right at it shows me that the grace my life overflows with is something I want to cherish and share.

Telling musical stories matters, and the way you tell musical stories matters. The way you show up to sing one day could be that heart and honesty morsel someone saves for a devastating day.

Because remember, there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

ps The YouTube algorithm delivered a moment of healing beauty and grace to me this week. I was about to ignore and go to the next doom news video, but it started before I could intervene.

Take a moment to watch and listen to this Beethoven’s 9th Flash Mob in Tokyo. I may have been shoulder-bounce crying as I packed our picnic lunch yesterday.

pps You wanna learn from a really smart director like Richard Israel? You can! Here’s his website. And here’s where you can find out how to work with him. I recommend.

ppps You know I gotta hit you with the latest New England cold-ish beach pics. We had a quick day trip out to Nantasket Beach/Hull, Mass. I love being an hour from the water–the ocean’s healing.

pppPs One more thing—I’m prepping for a faculty recital at BoCo Saturday April 9 at 2pm, so mark your calendars if you wanna catch the live stream. Or come to Boston! The school’s open to outside visitors attending performances now. It’ll be the music of Richard Strauss and Stephen Sondheim. I’ll keep you posted!

Thank You, Trauma? ? Your baggage has great news for you.

November 9, 2021 / dancallaway

Hellerrrr You Brilliant Resilient —

I’m a late processor. Late for what? I’m not sure.

I’m a take-my-time processor. That’s it.

When I was in London, ??my voice instructor would sometimes pour us both a whiskey and ginger before a lesson (in tea mugs).

I remember the end of one session while another was beginning, she sent me to the corner off-licence for supplies. That’s when 22-year-old me learned what a Moscow Mule was.

At some lessons she was sweet as pie, and other lessons she said things to me that made my throat catch, my stomach clinch, and tears sting my eye corners.

I never knew which teacher I’d be seeing that day. And I wondered why I felt stressed biking down to Brixton every week.

A year after I’d moved to NYC, I was walking down Second Avenue when in an 8-part harmony angel choir theophany moment ?, I stopped in my tracks and said out loud, “Sylvia was an alcoholic!”*

I just thought all Londoners drank that much. I did bartend in a pub, so I had plenty of evidence.

But yeah. A little slow in the evidence assimilation there.

As I tell you that, a list of dodged bullets runs like a dang-that-was-close news ticker through my young adult years.

You see, for various reasons in my childhood, my mind learned to file potentially painful information in the “Process Much Later” file. ?

While this has caused problems (ask the active paperwork inbox in my still-unpacked studio), it’s also brought benefits.

I’ve navigated scenarios so chaotic that if you proposed them in script form to Lifetime TV, they’d tell you to bring them something realistic.

My brain created all kinds of back door exits in response to life traumas that are very handy escape hatches when I encounter crap-tastic circumstances.

Don’t get me wrong. My lil-Dan coping mechanisms have wreaked their share of havoc.

Thousands of dollars worth of therapy and credit card interest later, I’m here to tell you I’ve come to a spot where I can usually meet my psyche’s brilliant survival tactics with understanding and gratitude.

They even work in my favor sometimes.

Big emotional event?–My mind organizes the ordeal into the deal-with-later file, and I know one day I’ll let the snot and tears dribble. But today I may just have to pay bills.

What are the things that little you did to cope that keep showing up today?

Did you know that your voice tells you about these kid skills too?

?Tongue tension, for example, is often a belief that you need to press back your expression because you might have run into negative consequences for letting out your feels.

?Pharyngeal constriction (intense whispery/constrained feeling) can link to earning love through meeting a perfectionistic/impossible standard.

?And hypofunctional phonation (not enough breath energy for a vibrant sound) can shine a light on areas where you’ve judged you don’t deserve things.

I remind myself, and I tell my students that these things are all tryina help you.

Your tight tongue is protecting you from the danger your expression got you in in the past.

Your constricting pharynx is trying real hard to keep you doing the things that get you love and acceptance.

And that stingy air flow is keeping that story alive about not deserving nice things so you don’t have to grieve over the years you’ve ID-ed with the deprivation that got shellacked on you as a kid.

I’ll often ask a student to pause and meditate into the spot that’s not doing what they want it to do.

They have a little conversation with their tongue root or their pharynx, and just like when you ask anybody a genuine question with the desire to understand, those parts of the body speak up.

When we can meet the parts of ourselves that seem to be getting in the way with empathy and compassion, we learn a lot.

I guarantee you it’s a lot more effective than shouting, “JUST RELAX!”

This week I invite you to notice the patterns little intelligent you cooked up to survive, and maybe give your baby psyche some props for their resilience brilliance.

When we invite these things to share their stories with us, they can mellow out, and they can even integrate themselves into some healthy adulting if we can partner with them in a gentle and conscious way.

And remember, beautiful you with your intricate assortment of survival skills, there’s only one of you, and folks need to hear the story that only you can sing.

Love much,
Dan

ps *re: my London story, names have been changed, and I still talk out loud to myself on city streets.

pps here’s the bar where I worked in London. The Havelock Tavern. Still there in Brook Green. I enjoyed working there, and it’s where my love of cooking started.