A star born and a legend made? Part 3

If this is your first time on my blog, check this out first.

If you missed the first two installments of this post, click here for part 1, here for part 2, or you can, you know, click the down arrow at the bottom right of your screen.

To make a long story even longer, here is (probably) the final installment of my Amateur Night audition saga...

If you checked the link from the last post to my LOL blog post from a year and a half ago, you've already got a taste of the routine I did for my audition. It was all about People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" issue, and how when I was in high school people would tell me I look like George Clooney, the SMA in 1997 and again in 2006.

I performed a 5-minute routine on this topic before a Laugh Out Loud show in December '06, horrifying Fred's mother because I kept saying the word sexy. I had several BYU-specific jokes in that routine, including a great one about Karl Maeser's chalk circle, but I managed to salvage about 80 seconds of more general-appeal stuff to use in my audition. (I made it relevant by mentioning how upset I was to see Clooney's reign end, as the new Sexiest Man issue was then on sale, with Matt Damon as the new king. I'd take more time arguing People's pick if I didn't keep getting lost in Damon's eyes...sorry, what was I talking about again?)

I didn't actually say anything about Matt Damon's peepers in my audition, but I got some laughs from the usually stoic judges the first time I mentioned that I used to get compared to George Clooney. It probably is a little funny, but it's actually true; back in high school I was unbelievably handsome. What the heck happened? Anyway, after that first laugh, my confidence soared, and I delivered my short routine better than I ever had when rehearsing it over the previous two days. I got virtually no reaction from the other auditioners in the room, but they were probably too focused on their own auditions. But I seemed to amuse one judge in particular, and after I finished she called me over and told me...

I MADE IT! I was really excited (I said in the previous post that I wasn't nervous because I didn't expect to be chosen; that didn't mean I didn't want to make it). She gave me a sheet of instructions with my performance date, and suddenly my accomplishment seemed less impressive: I'm in the Amateur Night show for April 16. Apparently they were casting several months' worth of shows at once, which means that most people were probably accepted. Plus, at the time I was expecting to be back in Utah by early March, although the way things have been going with work it's becoming more and more realistic that I could still be here in mid-April. Still, if I can get my Amateur Night routine finalized, I'm going to call and see if I can get into an earlier show (I don't want to call before I'm ready, in case they say "we have an opening this week" or something like that).

So you all have plenty of time to book your flights to come out here and watch me. The winners are determined solely by audience voting, which I think you can do online, but it will be much more enjoyable if you see my live, I'm sure. I can't decide if winning or getting booed off would be more memorable, but I'm pretty sure I know which would be more satisfying. I get 3 minutes to impress the crowd, and I'm not going to use the Sexiest Man Alive bit, since it won't be at all timely in April. Right now I'm working on one bit about pizza, and another about Mormon dating customs (particularly the high school ones). I'm hoping to work up 3-minute routines on both topics, then maybe do a test performance at FHE or something to see which is funnier.

So that's my audition story. After the audition the day became even more memorable, as I sampled "the best pizza in the planet earth", went bowling with the Elders Quorum, and attended the Lingos, the annual film festival of the 4 Manhattan-area singles wards, but I think I'll save commenting on those fun events for later posts.

So I'll soon be performing at Amateur Night at the Apollo. But that's kind of a niche theater. My desire to be the center of attention soon led me to more mainstream venues. Next time, I'll detail my Broadway debut. Seriously--in the short time I've been out here, I've appeared in a Broadway show. You're interested, aren't you?