As Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent penned in the 70s in The Card, “Today is the first day of the rest of our lives”, and this was my first thought* when I considered that I have reached my final year of education and was about to undertake my first audition for Fiddler on the Roof and Rags.

(*well, actually, I woke up singing ‘Astonishing’ to try and make myself believe I would smash it without having too high an expectation of myself – the perils of an extroverted introvert :D)

For a couple of weeks, I’ve been researching the characters of both Fiddler and Rags. Naturally, I found resonance with the younger characters (Tzeitel and Hodel Fiddler, Bella Rags), but as I read both scripts, I was drawn into the history of Russia, Judaism and America at the turn of the 19th century. To begin preparing audition songs, I researched musicals of a similar era, of the same composer, and similar themes. I had begun to have an idea of who I wanted to audition for and so I tailored my choices to them. I wanted to show the naivety and innocence of an oppressed young woman, and began to work with “Will He Like Me?” from She Loves Me and “Much More” from The Fantasticks, which both became my final choices.

I worked with my singing tutor, Robert Bicknell, to find appropriate cuts for both songs which included a difference in range and vocal quality. However, as the audition date drew closer, I began to lose faith in my choices. They seemed tailored more towards one musical and didn’t  show the full extent of my range but rather the vocal ranges of the characters. They felt “safe” considering I have been fighting a long bout of illnesses and were therefore accessible should I find my voice wanting to give in on the day.

Today, I walked into the audition room having gone through a full vocal warm up in the basement practice rooms (where I felt confident and calm) and feeling at a sudden loss. It was a different environment where I could hear different tones within my own voice and I started reacting differently than I’d rehearsed. I spoke to the pianist with confidence and clarity, but when I got to the centre of the room, I lost some of the confidence I’d had only half an hour before. I suddenly became conscious of the way I was presenting myself rather than just being myself and I feel like this reflected in my performance.

But, I like to believe every cloud has a silver lining, and I know that – at the end of the day – I will be in one of the shows. I can only do my best within the acting tomorrow, and then it’s a waiting game until the cast list comes out. No amount of fantasy or projection can just hand me the role I would like, so I know I have to give the best I can and leave it to the casting directors to find the role best suited to me.