War and Peace—The Audition
Posted by Charles Sheek on 11/20/2007
Lining up outside the church for the auditon.
Several hundred hopefuls lined up outside an empty church near Lincoln Center on two Saturday mornings in October hoping to be cast as one of the more than 250 male supernumeraries in War and Peace.
Patiently waiting to be called.
Many were working actors looking to keep busy during a slow time or experienced Met supers from other productions; however, the long line outside the church included a Wall Street broker, a building handyman, and a Catholic priest. Diverse, yes—but everyone had one thing in common: an excitement about appearing on the vast Met stage.
One of the experienced supers said that this season he was already appearing in the Egyptian army in Aida, and felt he had the marching thing down. (He also confided that he was of Russian heritage and hoped to be cast in the Russian Army, not the French). Another happened to see Carmen at the Met a while back and thought it’d be exciting to be in a big Met production. The rest of us, who were decidedly more pedestrian, just loved opera and wanted to experience it from the other side of the gold curtain. One common element was that everyone agreed they weren’t doing it to get rich. At about $20 per act, and a performance call after 10 pm at night, better money and hours could be found almost anywhere else.
Sasha shows how it is done.
Once inside the church Sasha Semin, a veteran Met supernumerary, who also appeared in the 2002 Met premiere of the production, led groups of 15–20 men in marching drills. He demonstrated with clean and crisp precision, “fingers in,” “chest up and out,” gaze forward!” Suddenly it wasn’t so easy. “Right face, left face, about face.” It was like a grown-up game of “Simon Sez” that defeated some who most decidedly knew right from left, but whose bodies didn’t seem to remember.
Attention!
In the middle of the audition I flashed back to my teen-age years in military school in West Virginia. Much of it spent marching: to the mess hall, football games, holiday parades, and even when I got demerits for bad behavior. Boy, did I hate it. But many years later this has the potential to be a lot of fun (provided I don’t trample the person in front of me). The happy news was that my body remembered its former military bearing, and with some concentration I could stand on one leg.
The directors make a decision; Nicky Romaniello gets measured; Kyle Zingler is photographed.
Those of us who made it through the marching drills were immediately cast and sent for costume measurements and technical reference photos with the stern warning that we were now committed to a rehearsal schedule and eight performances!