The Audition

In honor of the two-year anniversary of the most unprofessionally run audition of the twenty-first century (thus far), I thought I'd share yet another writing exercise in which I was to describe an event I had been looking forward to, but that didn't turn out as I had expected. Names and locations have been deliberately omitted to protect the innocent.

Of the eight applicants vying for the two open positions in my hometown orchestra, my chances looked good. I was a little upset that I was asked to choose which position I wanted to pursue, as I was planning to audition on both instruments. Assuming that everyone had faced the same dilemma, I chose English horn, as I had been asked to sub on the orchestra's masterworks concert the same weekend, a last-minute call for an extremely difficult piece. I was also thinking that most people would choose to audition on oboe instead of an auxiliary instrument. As it turns out, I was the only one who was asked to audition on one instrument or the other; everyone else (save the college student who didn't have an English horn) was auditioning on both instruments.

Since no one else had to choose between instruments, I tried to get my name back on the oboe audition list that morning, but was told that it was too late, which didn't seem fair. Then the committee decided to separate the auditions instead of having every applicant start on oboe (which is what usually happens), and those they wanted to hear again would return with the English horn in the final rounds. So I sulked in the harshly lit warm-up room I had been assigned and waited for the other seven applicants to finish their oboe auditions. An hour passed. Then another. I started asking questions two-and-a-half hours in, but at that point, they were just moving onto the final round. The screen that separates the candidates from the judging panel is removed during the final round, and musicians are allowed to interact with the committee.

After another 45 minutes of deliberation, the announcement was made that no one played well enough for the Maestra’s liking (I find that hard to believe; there were some great players there!), but that the position would be given by default to the woman who had been awarded the one-year position the season before. After all, she had performed better than all of the other candidates that morning.

Finally, numbers were drawn for the English horn audition. The way rooms were assigned was this: Candidate #1 was placed in warm-up room #1, Candidate #2 (that was me) went into warm-up room #2, and so forth. As I was running over the excerpts that I had been trying not to over practice in the hours before, I heard a knock at the door. The Maestra opened the door and stuck her head in the room.

“Who’s in here?” she asked. I balked, as the first cardinal rule of any legit audition is not to let the committee see any of the applicants before they play.

“Oh,” she said, deflated. “I just needed to use the bathroom. Never mind.” Having practically grown up in that auditorium, I know for a fact there was a bathroom about 20 feet behind where she had been sitting in the auditorium, but I said nothing.

Then I heard a knock at the practice room door next to mine. Through the thin walls, I heard her ask to use the bathroom and she entered the room. Instead of voiding her bladder, however, she proceeded to coach Candidate #1 (who was a finalist from the previous audition, not to mention a great English horn player) on her sound and her playing style. As I listened, thunderstruck, on the other side of the drywall divide, I heard the Maestra tell Candidate #1 that, “this is what I’m listening for. This is how I want this to be played. Do you think you can do that?” Then she left the room and assumed her spot behind the curtain.

Seething, but hoping to remain more professional than the Maestra, I waited until after my audition to approach the personnel manager. I played well, but my focus was shot, as a good portion of my brain was still trying to process what had just happened. I may as well have just left because – lo and behold – Candidate #1 won the gig. Imagine that.

But I still had a concert to play that night. Under the Maestra's woefully unprepared baton. And I couldn't no-show; the orchestra and the soloist would have been just as affected (possibly more so) by my absence as the Maestra. So I stayed and played. I'd like to think I played well enough to make her regret her decision (not that I wanted to play for her again... EVER... in fact, I told the personnel manager to forget my name and lose my number before I left the audition that afternoon). Although I took the high road that night, I also took great satisfaction in reporting her to the Union the following week.

Fortunately, the universe has a way of righting wrongs. I won't go into the specifics of what has happened since, except to tell the Maestra that karma is a bitch, what goes around comes around, etc. etc. etc.

Rocky on Rockwell?

I live close to an el stop – as in, if I fell out my living room window, I would be on the el tracks, close – and can see the station from my kitchen window. I like to people watch when I'm cooking or washing dishes, and more than once (okay, quite a bit), I’ve spied a well-dressed guy at the station, whose faded navy Jansport backpack doesn’t quite go with his creased slacks and colorful ties. He catches the 2:48 train toward the Loop, arriving shortly before it arrives. In fact, he has his departure timed so well, that he strides confidently onto the platform, walks directly past the recycling box, the pay phone, and the other commuters, and drops his old Jansport onto a bench about halfway down the platform.

He then drops and does exactly 15 pushups – the manly kind, with an extra-macho clap of his hands between each one – as the train approaches. He somehow always manages to complete all fifteen just as the train rolls to a stop. He leaps up, assumes a very Rocky-esque stance, throwing his clenched fists into the air victoriously as he grunts, “YEAH!” Then he slings that dirty blue backpack over his freshly pressed shirt and boards the fourth car of the Brown Line train.

The Pee Party

I thought about calling this the Tale of Two Toddlers, but this time, it's not the wee ones who have me steamed, it's their parents. I got to work this morning and was handed a wet booster seat. A little girl at one of my tables had wet her pants. It was gross, but she was crying and her mother was horrified, and hey-- it happens. I carried the soiled booster off to the side, hosed it down, doused it with bathroom cleaner, and left it to dry. What bugged me, though, was that the family decided to stay and finish their lunch, even though the little girl was wet and still crying. She sat in her own filth for another half an hour or so! This seemed cruel to me, but I'm not a parent, so what do I know?

The rest of the morning shift went off without a hitch. I took a break and ate a late lunch, and no sooner did I clock back in and walk out onto the patio do I see another little girl trying to get her parents' attention. She was out of her high chair doing the pee-pee dance, tugging on her mother's sleeve and saying "mommymommymommymommymommymommymommy". Mommy was ignoring her, and before I could cross the sidewalk to alert this negligent parent to her child's urgent need, the little girl squats and pees all over the patio. The parents were still oblivious.

Since it was no longer an emergency, I said nothing, because I didn't know how to nicely tell someone that, because they weren't tending to the needs of their child, the child had just gone number one all over the patio. I couldn't help but smirk, though, when the dad absently picked up the little girl (in order to shut her up) and put her on his knee. His pant leg got soaked, and he paid attention then! So he told his wife, and then they laughed! They, too, decided not to leave right away, but let their child stand in her wet, soiled clothes as they finished their drinks. These parents, unlike the ones from lunch, made no attempt to clean up after their child, and when they left, they giggled as they carefully skirted the puddle next to their table. I made a point of shooting them a nasty look as I hosed off the patio seconds after they had gotten up.

So to all the bad parents out there, let me say this: Public urination is not cute, and it's not funny; it's a misdemeanor. And, when done at a restaurant, it's also a health code violation. So if your child is potty training, if you're not willing to be extra vigilant about their not-so-subtle hints about needing to go when you're out in public, then put a diaper on them until you get home. If you want, you can let them pee on your kitchen or dining room floor instead. But it's not my fault that you procreated, so it shouldn't be my responsibility to clean up after your offspring. At least not in that capacity. That is all.

Floor 2.5

Did you know that Millennium Park is one of the largest rooftop gardens in the country? Below this stage, the Pritzker Pavillion, the building and its adjacent parking garages extend another 7 floors below the Earth. In addition to parking, you'll find offices, practice and rehearsal rooms, auditoriums, public restrooms, and even a pedestrian walkway to the red line/blue line subway under Millennium Park! But first, you'll have to figure out how to get into this architectural freak of nature. And be warned: the floor plan of this building is just as convoluted as its rooftop is spectacular.

Having been inside the belly of the Pritzker Pavillion for auditions numerous times before, I wisely left myself some extra time to find the Harris Theater. I stepped off the train more than a half hour before rehearsal was slated to start and checked the info sheet that the personnel manager had emailed me just days before. All it said was:

Friday Rehearsal 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Harris Theater

201 E. Randolph Street

I went to the main entrance of the Harris Theater of Dance only to find it locked. The next door I found led to an underground parking garage, so I trotted around to the back of the building and tried the entrance I had used to get to my auditions. It was also locked. I walked the entire perimeter of the building, and could not find a way in. So I walked back around to the park side and found a janitor sweeping in front of the restrooms. He told me to enter through the parking garage, which seemed weird. So I retraced my steps, and along the way, I asked a maintenance guy, a random French hornist (who I hoped was going to the same rehearsal-- he wasn't), and a cop on a Segway how on earth I was supposed to get into the building.

Segway cop finally told me to take the parking garage elevators to floor 2.5 (I really hoped he wasn't joking, since, by this time, rehearsal was starting in 10 minutes) and to ask the first person I encountered in the concrete maze below how to get to the Theater from there. So I stepped off the elevator and followed the stark cinder block hallways around three sudden corners before I stumbled on a security desk.

Overcome with relief, I told the woman behind the desk what I was there for, and asked her to direct me to the rehearsal. She told me to follow the wide concrete hallway around two more corners and down a half flight of stairs, where I would find the Harris Theater.

I opened a heavy set of double doors and stepped on stage, but instead of hearing the familiar sounds of an orchestra warming up, I heard a power saw. Rehearsal was starting in two minutes, and it certainly wasn't in here. Power saw guy spotted me at the edge of the orchestra pit, looking bewildered, and asked me where I was trying to go. When I told him, he nodded knowingly, as if I wasn't the first person who had wandered into a dark theater looking for something that wasn't there.

So I followed his instructions and passed through the heavy velour stage curtains, stepping gingerly over a river of cables and wires, and opened the steel door he had described to find... a mess of rope pulleys for the curtains through which I had just passed. I was just about to retrace my steps to ask him again when I spied it; another steel door, barely visible behind some metal scaffolding. I carefully made my way over there, trying to avoid the sandbags that were holding the curtain ropes in place.

This door opened up into another nondescript hallway and, thankfully, not a closet. So as I crossed the threshold from backstage, the sounds of my own footsteps were quickly replaced by what was at that time (10:03 to be exact) the most glorious noise I'd ever heard; the cacophony of string players warming up their instruments with freshly rosined bows.

Running now, I bolted toward the sound and threw open yet another set of double doors at the end of the hallway and found the errant orchestra. I arrived frazzled and out of breath, but I beat the conductor to the room, so I hastily assembled my oboe and was prepared to give the tuning note with about 3 seconds to spare.

Once rehearsal was over, I packed up quickly and followed the regulars out a side door, which led to a green room and a set of elevators. Although it had taken me nearly 35 minutes to get into the building, it took me only a minute and a half to get out. If I'm ever called to sub with this group again, I'll be sure to request a map next time.