We were so excited to receive a personal call from Mark Simon Casting this week inviting my daughter to come to NYC and audition for "13"! This is a first for us. They received our information from Jen Rudin/Disney Theatricals who did the recent Mary Poppins auditions in Atlanta. My daughter was one of the final 11 in the final callbacks. I was pretty sure that she was too tall to ever get the role, but Jen said they do consider them for other roles so we just hoped someday she would get called again. Apparently, Jen passed her info to Mark Simon Casting and they contacted us! It's very exciting for me to see that the networking in this industry really does work.

So we're off to NYC on Tuesday for her Wednesday afternoon appointment! Then we have to hang around for possible callbacks Thursday or Friday.

I'm familiar with NYC having grown up in southeastern PA and visitd NYC often. But I'd appreciate any input or advice regarding the audition itself. She has been asked to prepare a contemporary song, something like you'd hear on the radio in the last 20 years.

Oh, also, we are considering attending the Disney open call Saturday morning. Should we bother if she already did the Mary Poppins audition and did so well?

Thanks,
Leah

Congrats! Have fun and best of luck to your DD. I don't have much advice for you on the 13 audition, but as for disney, if she just auditioned for MP and made it through all those callbacks it would seem to be a waste to go to the open call. She's obviously already on disney's radar screen, and if she's too tall for MP she's most certainly too tall for Lion King, and that's the only other disney show currently using young girls.

Again, best of luck and enjoy your trip!

Leah -

That's GREAT news! I'll be sure to my DD, who met you & yours at the MP auditions.

~T

Hi Fluff,

I was hoping you'd see this post. We are thrilled and so excited!

Leah

I bet! You're going to have a blast!

We're excited b/c Jason Robert Brown is coming back to Birmingham in the fall to do a concert with the company my DD performs with. We're crossing our fingers he offers a master class like he did the last time he was in town!

Please update us after your 13 audition.... can't wait to hear the details.

~T

Well, no callback this time............we're disappointed, but of course, that's the way this all works. Never the less, we are enjoying our week in NYC!

Leah

Hey Leah,

Somehow I missed your post. Sorry she didn't get a CB, but it was GREAT that she was called up there! I would have brought my daughter up for it, but I suspect she still looks too young. She'll be 14 in a couple months, but still passes for 11 or so.

She is doing the east coast premiere of Stories from a Teens' Life in July. Looking forward to that!

~T