Auditioning for this play was like the plot of the Groucho Marx, Carmen Miranda film \u201cCopacabana.”<\/p>\n
My agents set up an audition for 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday <\/span>to play the role of bigoted red-neck Bob Ewell in a production of To Kill A Mockingbird at the Dallas Theater Center.<\/p>\n <\/span>A couple of days later my agents called again saying that they had another audition for me at 3:00 p.m. on the same day at the same rehearsal studio on Eighth Avenue, to play the role of Theodore Whitman the male half of a vaudeville dance team in the upcoming Broadway revival of \u201cFollies.\u201d<\/p>\n These two characters are the exact opposites. Ewell being a drunken, racist bigot and Whitman, an elegant light-hearted song and dance man.<\/p>\n I let my beard stubble grow for a few days, put on an old pair of jeans, a crumpled up T-shirt and the dirtiest boots that I owned; put my suit, white shirt and tie in a garment bag and threw my sheet music, photo & resume, dance shoes and dop kit with all of my shaving and hair grooming stuff into a backpack. I also threw in a big book of matches (I\u2019ll explain that later).<\/p>\n I did the Mockingbird audition and it went well. I was unshaven and really felt like a derelict. Director Wendy Dann said \u201cthat\u2019s really scary.\u201d <\/em>She gave me another scene to read and I didn\u2019t understand what scene she meant. I was waiting for the reader who was seated across the room to start reading; we stared at each other for a minute, and in character, I yelled across the room <\/span>\u201cWe\u2019ll are you gonna say somethin\u2019 or not?\u201d<\/i> He was confused and taken aback. We got it straightened out and started the scene. I felt good about what I was doing. Once more the director said \u201cthat was really scary.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n When the audition was over, I hurried out of the room so that I could shave, change clothes and prepare for the Follies audition. As I was halfway down the hallway, the casting director came out of the room and yelled down the hall “James, we\u2019d like you to come back at 4:00.”<\/em> <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The To Kill a Mockingbird audition was on the 2nd floor and the Follies audition was on the 12th floor. There was a restroom on the 4th floor which seemed empty, so I went in, shaved off the stubble and changed my clothes. (The reference to the film \u201cCopacabana\u201d is that Carmen was booked into the Copa as Brazilian Bombshell Carmen; she was broke and needed another job so she put a veil over her face to disguise herself and worked the downstairs lounge as Mme. Fifi.)<\/p>\n The Follies audition went well. I sang my two songs and read a scene from the show. When it was over, I went back down to the restroom on the 4th floor to get back into my Bob Ewell dingy clothes, messed up hair and dirty boots and because I had shaved my stubble off \u2014 here\u2019s where the matchbook comes in \u2014 burned the book of the matches and used them to dirty up my face, went back down to the 2nd floor just in time for the 4:00 p.m. callback.<\/p>\n \u201cChance favors the man prepared.\u201d<\/i> <\/span>I GOT THE JOB !!!<\/p>\n [aesop_image force_fullwidth=”off” lightbox=”off” captionposition=”left” caption=”Photo courtesy of Dallas Theater Center” captionsrc=”custom” align=”center” imgwidth=”800px” img=”https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/dybasjames\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/188\/2020\/09\/Mockingbird-Bob-Ewell-photo-1.jpg” panorama=”off”]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Auditioning for this play was like the plot of the Groucho Marx, Carmen Miranda film \u201cCopacabana.” My agents set up an audition for 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday to play the role of bigoted red-neck Bob Ewell in a production of To Kill A Mockingbird at the Dallas Theater Center. A couple of days later my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":1408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlight"],"metadata":{"_edit_last":["200"],"_wpac_members_redirect_to":[""],"_wpac_show_in_search":["0"],"_wpac_show_excerpt_in_search":["0"],"_wpac_nonmembers_redirect_to":[""],"ase_chapter_enable_timeline":["off"],"_thumbnail_id":["1408"],"ase_map_component_start_point":["a:2:{s:3:\"lat\";d:29.76;s:3:\"lng\";d:-95.38;}"]},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n