I search Backstage Magazine, which is really the only
trade paper for performers looking for a job, any job.
There is a second weekly
trade called “Show Business” but I have yet to find a reliable audition in that
paper. If I do find an audition in Show Business Magazine and go, I find myself
in dimly lit hallways with shady characters asking if I will do nude work.
“Yup,
no real jobs.”
Every now and then I will also pick up “Variety” but since it’s
no longer the 1940s, I have no luck finding work.
I not only need a dance job, but I really need a good one
and one that last’s at least 3 months long. That way I can do the job,
then return and collect unemployment while I look for a new job. If I can do
that, I can hold off starvation and homelessness for a little longer.
Unfortunately for me, this week’s paper is pretty
empty. It has little to no job listings, but is plenty full of ads. Finally,
after a long exhausting search, it looks like I have found at least one
audition to attend.
Grabbing a pen, I circle it in the paper and then
transfer it into my date book. It’s not great but it’s not bad. I have a couple
of days before I have to go. I will run to class and the gym. I know what my
competition will look like.
The audition takes place at the Radio City Music Hall
rehearsal studios. Which is located on West 50th street between 5th
and 6th. Getting there early, I see that I am not the only one with
that idea. On the street outside the door to waiting to get in, are Male
dancers of every shape and size. The crowd of pushing and preening boys winds
down the block. I am easily number 300 and at the back of the line.
“I hear these studios are pretty big and that they
take 50 boys at a time.” Says the boy in front of me who is compulsively
twisting his hair around his finger. “God!” he exclaims, “I am so nervous.”
to be continued…
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "Not Only Magic Floats". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.