by Jen Rudin
DON’T make your child shake hands with us. Too many germs floating around.
DON’T bring a sick child to the audition. Ask your agent if there’s an alternate day to audition to avoid passing along a bug to the casting staff.
DON’T linger at the audition room door trying to listen to your child’s audition. Just relax in the waiting room. Remember, there’s no reason to get hysterical.
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Auditioning for Broadway and Tours
There are often open calls around the country for Broadway and touring shows such as Annie, Matilda, Mary Poppins, The Lion King, and Billy Elliot. You can google the shows to find out about open calls. Read the requirements carefully. Many of the shows have a height limit (usually fifty-eight inches is the cutoff) and vocal and dance requirements. Often a child will endure numerous auditions, callbacks, and group workshops before getting cast on Broadway or in a touring company. Some families relocate on their own dime to New York City for the opportunity. Others commute from the surrounding tristate area. Parents must be willing and ready to spend lots of time traveling into and out of New York City for a Broadway show.
During my time casting children for the Broadway and touring casts of Mary Poppins, we held three-hour “workshop” auditions for the children’s roles. During the first hour, the children played specific theater games. This allowed us to observe the group—to see how they played with each other and used their imagination. We could also see which children had some type of attention deficit disorder or otherwise lacked patience and focus. The group audition atmosphere fostered a more communal audition environment and helped diminish the competitive feeling. But despite the friendly environment, everyone knew that at the end of the day, a few lucky ones would get cast and the others would either go into the files for the future or back to the soccer field.
AUDITION STORIES
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The Audition That Changed My Life
The audition that changed my life was definitely my audition for the national tour of Lost in Yonkers. It was an open call at Equity. I got to the audition and they announced that our monologue had to be from a Neil Simon play. I signed up for a time slot, then ran home and memorized a monologue from a Neil Simon play I had done a few years earlier (not from the role I had actually played). When I returned, I was surprised to find that it would be Jay Binder [a top Broadway casting director] himself personally running the audition! I booked the job and it was my first production contract, my first of many jobs booked through Jay Binder (which later led to my Broadway debut in The Lion King), and the beginning of nine Neil Simon shows that I booked over the next three years—and the offer led to me getting my agent! All in all, quite an audition!
—TONY FREEMAN
ASK THE
ACTOR
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What do you remember about your Mary Poppins audition?
I felt like I was well prepared when I went to the audition, but as I entered the waiting room where the auditions were being held that day, I remember seeing a dozen boys sitting with their parents and I started to feel a little nervous. However, the people who were watching us audition (including Thomas Schumacher, president of Disney Theatricals, and Jen Rudin!) were all extremely nice and welcoming. I went through three more auditions. A few days later my agent called. As I heard her singing a tune from Mary Poppins, my heart stopped. I got the role, and I made my Broadway debut at age twelve.
—ANDREW SHIPMAN,
age fifteen
Glimpses of Life on Broadway
It’s a thrill for everyone in the family when a child gets cast in a Broadway show. Your child’s agent will guide you through the initial details of the contract. Children are often paid a salary of around $1,700 per week. Once the agent has been paid his or her obligatory 10 percent commission and you put 15 percent away in a Coogan account,* there’s not much money left at the end of the day.
Once rehearsals begin, the show’s company manager† and stage manager‡ will be your point people to answer all questions. Remember that your child has been hired and contracted to perform a job. They are expected to arrive on time and act like a professional. A parent or guardian is required to pick the child up at the designated lunch break. Rehearsal days are often a relay race between parents, hired guardians, nannies, and baby-sitters. Rehearsals can last several weeks or months and are usually held in a Midtown studio from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. each day, often including weekends. The production will provide a tutor to work with your child during this period.
For the Broadway company of Mary Poppins, we hired three sets of children to play the demanding lead roles of Jane and Michael Banks. Newly hired children often rehearsed separately from the rest of the cast, since they were replacing children who’d outgrown the role or whose contract had expired. Once they’d learned the show, the new children would have a “put-in,” which is a dress rehearsal for a new cast member with the cast, crew, props, lights, and set. They would usually make their debut in the role the evening of the same day.
Once the show begins preview performances and then officially opens, the child’s schedule shifts from rehearsals to performances. Broadway shows usually perform eight times a week. Each child in Mary Poppins performed their role for three or four shows a week. When not performing, the actors would be on standby offstage in case someone got sick or injured.
Some families find the performance schedule easier since the child can go back to a regular school schedule. Now your job is to bring your child to the theater at their required call time* before the performance. This is often an hour or half hour before the performance begins. Remember, your child has been hired for a job and lateness will not be tolerated.
Since parents are usually not allowed backstage in a Broadway theater, they often wait in a coffee shop, hotel bar, or diner until the show is over. On any given evening, many parents can be found congregating in the eighth-floor lounge at the Marriott Marquis hotel. One mother calls these mothers “upscale bag ladies” because of their similar rolling suitcases or backpacks. They’ll be charging phones, glancing at watches, and counting down as they wait for their child’s show to end so they can finally pick them up and go home.
Tips for Broadway Stage Parents
•Rent a monthly parking space if you will be driving your child to the theater every day. There are many parking lots located in the theater district. Check www.groupon.com for offers and discounts.
•If you can afford it, consider renting a studio apartment in the theater district. This option provides a quiet place to hang out, shower, eat, and do homework in between shows and rehearsals. It certainly beats killing time at a nearby Starbucks and can be a great option if your commute back to New Jersey, Westchester, or Connecticut is just long enough to be too long.
•Find a comfortable place to plant yourself when your child is performing their show. Many nearby hotels (Marriott Marquis and Westin) provide free wireless and comfortable lounges. You may need to order tea or a snack if you’re there for extended hours.
•There are plenty of affordable places to eat, like the Westway Diner and Cafe Edison. Steer clear of the tourist traps and walk over to Ninth Avenue for some cheaper eats.
•Join an affordable gym in the area. New York Sports Club has multiple locations in the theater district.
•If you practice yoga, check out Bikram Yoga’s Midtown location for classes or Yoga to the People, a donation-based studio with multiple locations throughout the city.
Films and TV Shoots
Life on a TV or film set is very different from the theater world. Call times to the set are very early, and shoots can take place in faraway locations like Australia or Canada for months at a time. Since a child under eighteen is required to have a guardian on the set with them, parents should prepare to spend long hours on the set. Bring a book, an iPad, or your knitting, and be careful not to fill up on all that free food provided by craft services.
ASK A
Savvy
STAGE MOM
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LIFE ON THE MOVIE SET
What’s your best advice for a parent accompanying their child on a film set?
Be respectful on a film set, but remember that this is a business with rules. As much as you show up and present yourself and your child as professionals, you also have to establish that you will not do everything that the crew wants, such as working longer hours than SAG allows or skipping required meal breaks. Make sure you familiarize yourself with SAG rules for minors on the set.
—MICHELE TERAN-MIZRAHI
Real-Life Stories: Matilda and Mary Poppins Mothers
Jennifer Tulchin, a stay-at-home mother from Westchester, New York, has two daughters in show business and an older son who excels in music and martial arts. When her younger daughter began rehearsals for the Broadway show Matilda, Jennifer often spent the entire day in the city while her daughter rehearsed. Though the Tulchins’ home is just a forty-five-minute drive from the Midtown rehearsal location, unpredictable traffic made the journey difficult and she always left two hours early to be safe. During the day, while Beatrice rehearsed, it just wasn’t feasible for Jennifer to drive home to start the laundry or take the dog to the groomer. Jennifer says she often feels like an ambassador or diplomat for her daughter: “You want to be useful to her and also available at a moment’s notice if she needs you.” Her cell phone is a permanent fixture on her belt. “I’m always on call and available to spring into action at a moment’s notice,” she says.
Worlds can often blur when one parent has to spend hours in the city waiting for rehearsals or the show to conclude. Thankfully for Jennifer, one of the Matilda moms became a certified yoga instructor and now some of the mothers attend classes in a nearby apartment while the children perform. The yoga classes have become “a life raft,” Jennifer says. Time on the yoga mat is her time to think, relax, and let go of her never-ending to-do list.
Sometimes the Broadway performance schedule can be challenging for the entire family. Jen and Matt Merna’s eleven-year-old son, Tyler, joined Mary Poppins on Broadway following his successful run as Michael Banks on the national tour. During one of Tyler’s nights off from the show, Jen was just about to put her feverish four-year-old daughter to bed when the phone rang. One of the other boys who played Michael was sick and stage management needed Tyler to come into the city to stand by. It was starting to rain and Jen Merna knew it would take at least two hours for her to drive into the city. That night she felt like her life was dictated by her son’s job. Tyler had a contract, so she was obligated to bring him in. Her husband was away on business and she didn’t want to bring her sick daughter to a friend’s house, so she put both children in the car and drove two hours in the pouring rain with a sick toddler. She dropped Tyler at the theater. The rain was so bad that it was impossible to find parking, so she stayed in the car double-parked for the two-hour show, trying her best to clean up her daughter, who’d gotten sick in the car. “It’s one thing when your husband’s job doesn’t allow for you to take a family vacation when you want. But instead it’s your child’s job dictating the schedule.” While nights like these were tough, the joy and amazing experiences the show brought to Tyler made it well worth the sacrifice.
When it comes to friends, school, and sports, parents face the challenge to maintain balance in their child’s life. Since kids can’t make the commitment to a sports team, Jen Merna makes sure that Tyler goes to soccer camps and plays lacrosse when he can. She and her husband, Matt, assure Tyler that his acting career is just one piece of his life and who he is. They often remind him that while his career is exciting, what really matters are his friends and his family.
ASK THE
ACTOR
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What was your audition experience like for the Mary Poppins national tour?
I met Jen Rudin when she taught a workshop in Boulder, Colorado, and she invited me to audition for the Mary Poppins tour. We played numerous games that tested our memory and creativity. I knew were being observed. Sometime later we moved on to singing cuts of some songs in the show. We listened politely as the others sang. The singing is always what got my stomach most twisted up, but the adrenaline and rush of the moment also fueled my eagerness. After a couple hours in the auditioning room we were let go and told we would be contacted later to be informed on if we would be called back. We were all competing for the same two spots.
I flew to New York for another round, and that audition lasted eight hours. Throughout the day kids were let go as the audition sessions progressed and there were fewer and fewer kids left. I remember kids crying when they were cut. Young actors feel the same sting of rejection that older actors do. I felt a little guilty for getting to stay, but I was also ecstatic to be getting so far. For the last part of that day, it was down to three girls and three boys, and we were switched around in pairs to sing. My final audition lasted about thirty minutes, and I got the news that I was cast as Jane Banks! I met so many talented and gracious people during my nine months with the company and it forever changed my life. If I hadn’t attended that workshop in Boulder, I would never have gotten the chance to discover my dreams.
—AIDA NEITENBACH,
age seventeen
Adjusting to Tour Life
I spoke with the families of more than twenty child actors who went on tour, and their stories were united by a common thread: the strain on the siblings and parents left at home. Most tour contracts require an initial six-month commitment with a possible extension. A parent or guardian is required to travel with the child at all times. Both parent and child are provided with a weekly stipend of several hundred dollars to use for food and other living expenses. In many cases, one parent travels with the child while other family members remain at home. Marriages are often driven apart during this time. The parent on tour is faced with numerous lonely nights in a hotel room while the child performs at the theater, and this separation can take a toll on the family members left at home.
The parent is responsible for obtaining the child’s school curriculum to share with the tour teachers. Parents are in charge of providing three meals a day for their children. Cooking can be a challenging task in hotels that don’t provide refrigerators or microwaves. Many parents buy portable burners and frying pans, as it can be expensive to eat out every day. In many cities, parents must take a taxi to get to a Laundromat, so many will opt to do a lot of hand washing in the hotel room. Often parents try to work from the road. One father worked for six months from various hotel bathrooms so as not to disturb his sleeping son in the other room. Parents must make it clear to the children that the hotel room is their temporary home and that it’s not vacation.
With Abigail Droeger, Aida Neitenbach, and Christopher Flaim after a performance of Mary Poppins during the 2009 national tour in Chicago. (ANGELA AYERS)
Dani Berger, a freelance costume designer and former Rockette, was at the gym when her daughter’s manager called with an offer for the Mary Poppins tour. Dani felt surprise followed by joy. Then reality sank in. Her nine-year-old daughter was thrilled, but her husband Jon, a freelance musician, was initially skeptical. When the family sat down for dinner, her daughter pleaded, “Dad, what if someone gave you your dream, then took it away from you?” She convinced her father to let her accept the role and the family began to sort out the details. “Making the decision to tour or not to tour needs to be a family decision,” Dani warns. “It can’t be made by just one person.”
Tour life is very structured for the children. They perform in the show, sleep late, and experience a one-on-one relationship with their parent that they don’t get at home, especially if they have siblings. Tour life and an often-changing hotel room are hardly a vacation. When a hotel has a pool, everyone has fun. When a hotel has bedbugs, they do not.
The production travels on Monday, the technical day off. Often the flights connect through other cities and sometimes up to twelve hours can be s
pent in transit. Some parents I spoke to were afraid to fly and took pills to get through the turbulence. Another mother who split time on tour with a hired guardian grew to love the flights she used to fear. The flights became her treasured time alone as she sailed through the sky between her two worlds: downtime as she transitioned between the tour and her life and responsibilities back home.
Leaving Children and Spouses at Home
Shawn Senning, a Virginia-based mother of four, accompanied her son on an Oliver tour for nine months, leaving three children and her husband back at home. On a positive note, Shawn experienced independence for the first time in her life, since she had gotten married at a young age. But the guilt soon set in. Though Shawn tried to get home every few weeks to see her children, she felt guilty that she wasn’t home to help her boys at home through their early adolescence and her daughter through her elementary school years. There were times when her husband would call her and say, “Enough. You need to come home now.”
Routines
Many parents and kids settle into the structured routine of life on tour. The backdrop of the cities changes, and that dictates if their life will be easier or harder. If the hotel has a pool, the kids often do their required schooling by the pool. Many parents confide that they often feel they have to become virtually invisible to the production. And if a parent is the sole guardian, many feel lonely and desperate for adult company as they wait in their hotel rooms for the show to finish.
Parents realize quickly that tour life is not a vacation with time to sightsee or shop. Children put in many hours of rehearsal and then have to perform eight times a week, and they’re expected to act like adults. Some parents indulge in backstabbing and public humiliation, anything to get their kids on top. But despite the tour hardships, all parents agree that the moment they see their children perform, they are proud and awed, and they know the sacrifices are worth it.
