Into the lens

“Hello, old friend,” is what I found myself saying audibly to my carry-on suitcase as I dug her out from the garage. A familiar but long lost set of feelings followed: the simple satisfaction of a just-organized-enough pack job, the vigilance of triple checking the audition binder, and that quiet and nameless sensation of buzzing independence tinged with possibility and adrenaline that is so specific to travel. (Is there a German word for this?)

I’m on an Amtrak to Philadelphia for a live audition. To sing for real humans in a new city. I missed this. There was a time when auditions felt like a circus act: one part tightrope walk (displaying of technical mastery) one part contortionist (twisting oneself into the exact shape that might fill the space available) and one part psychic medium (defining and communicating the unsaid desires of your audience). But after a few years of mind-trickery, meditation, and good old fashioned repetition, I had gotten myself to a place where auditions really did feel like performances, in the best sense of the word. I generally walked out of the room feeling like I had represented myself, the music, and the characters honestly and fully. It was even getting fun. I got to explore new cities, reconnect with friends, and sing a whole lot. Rejection season always rolled around and some confronting bank account math would be done, but, fortunately, there was usually some Yes that affirmed the whole ordeal in retrospect. And when there wasn’t, I survived.

When Corona hit, I was again pretty fortunate. My summer gig turned virtual, and I got to connect with artists and mentors that transformed my just-wait-it-out mentality into something much more creatively charged. I began work with a composer on a new commission, I woodshedded some technique, and I committed to learning a brand new set of arias for audition season. I hungrily accepted every virtual recital series, every filmed production, and every semblance of a gig that came my way. And I set about my goal of normalizing my least favorite thing: recording.

Creating recordings had long since felt like my personally tailored perfectionist nightmare. Things I would forgive in live performance I dwelt upon in recorded form. I would dread watching myself for days, finally sit down and endure it, then, heart pounding, click submit on an application, telling myself it just has to be good enough to get in the room. So when this year’s audition season took shape and everything was to be recorded or streamed, I had to reframe things a bit. 

First, I got over my technophobia and learned how to record myself. The first few sessions went as usual: I felt like while singing one thing, I was still judging what I had done moments before. I had none of the good nerves and all of the bad. Pouring my soul out in front of the blank, painfully neutral lense of an iPhone had none of the sparkle of a live performance. And then I had to watch the videos and confront technical challenges I thought I had worked out months ago.

But sheer necessity and solidarity among friends going through the same painstaking process kept me showing up for the next session. And soon enough, hitting record and watching myself didn’t sting as badly. I was able to go in with increasingly specific goals, building upon and learning from the session before. And, perhaps most importantly, I began to use the medium to enhance what it is I already do. 

One of the most helpful exercises from the virtual summer festival I took part in was the process of writing one’s artistic manifesto--wherein we were instructed to compose a very short yet representative statement of who we are as artists. It was painstaking to write, but intensely clarifying to come back to. Part of mine reads as follows: 

“I am far more interested in telling a story than making beautiful sounds for their own sake. I prioritize preparedness, spontaneity, empathy, collaboration, laughter, and listening. In short, I stand for expression and connection.”    

Rather than going about my usual business and setting up a camera and a mic as bystanding witnesses, I found ways to integrate these new technical aspects of the craft so that they might affirm the things I stood for in my manfesto. Instead of performing in front of the camera, I began to perform into it. Moments where the lens itself became my focus point unlocked newfound potential for intimacy in my dramatic arcs. Watching those recordings back, I saw that the power and immediacy of that connection was unlike anything I could achieve in live performance. Soon feeling vocally exposed with the mic so close became a way to explore new colors and timbres, new ways the breath itself might weave it’s way into the music and the drama. I was more willing to sing brand new arias, ones I had never sung live, and I enjoyed how untortured and fresh they felt to sing. And I began to embrace the feeling that, even though the moment was being recorded, it was just that: a recording of a moment. It didn’t need to mean anything more or less than it did. The recordings I ended up sending I really grew to love. They are not perfect. They are evidence of who I was as an artist and a human that day. 

And now, I’m off to the in-person final round of an audition I wasn’t even sure I would get. And, while I’m psyched to have my first chance to sing for people unmasked in over a year, I have to admit, I may miss staring into that green light just a little bit. Just like I learned to love the camera, I will have to unlearn the sense of control it afforded me. I will have to trust my voice to fill the space and accept that people will receive the dramatic intent and musical interpretation I’m putting out there, or not. I will have to think on my feet if something goes wrong, instead of laughing and groaning and yelling “Cut!” I will wake up tomorrow morning in an unfamiliar bed, go to an unfamiliar room, meet and bear a little bit of my soul to unfamiliar people, and then head back home.

Artists everywhere were told time and time again that this pandemic was a great opportunity to adapt. As with “unprecedented times,” this directive started to be met with more eye rolls than appreciative nods over time. For me, it came to mean taking the thing I dreaded most, staring it directly in the lens, and learning to fall a little bit in love with it. 

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