On Monday, the three of us climbed in the tired old Ford Tempo and drove up to Seattle for the convention registration. We weren’t so lucky with traffic this time and were about 15 minutes late. I was a little flustered, hoping it wasn’t a negative “first impression” of us. (Checkout our archives for background info.)
We once again rode the elevator up through the elegant downtown Macy’s building to the 7th floor. This is where JRP (John Robert Powers Academy) has their spacious suite of offices and classrooms. The walls are lined with gigantic black & white portraits of icons like Jackie Kennedy, Kathryn Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Diana Ross, all who were at one time students of the John Robert Powers training.
Quietly, we found some spots at a round table. We were late and the presentation had begun. We were each given a white binder with tabbed sections. There were sections with forms to fill out, a section with the itinerary of our 10-week mandatory training and the schedule of events at the convention, and there was the all-important section called “Fundraising”.
Robert spoke first regarding the process of training and gave an over-view of the convention. He is an articulate, pleasant man very neatly dressed in a conservative suit and tie. He is the director of both the Seattle and the Sacramento, California JRP programs. He introduced us to Annavon, our Seattle director who would be with us “every step of the way” to the convention.
Annavon is tall, elegant, very articulate and enthusiastic. She seems very professional and has been guiding performers through the iPOP convention process for years. She gave a creative presentation on fundraising idea, sharing what students have done in past years. She mentioned that currently, a parent organizes groups of volunteers to sell concessions at Qwest field during sporting events every year. Those who volunteer split the profits and it goes to the kids’ JRP account. The intriguing thing is, if we get our friends to volunteer all their share of the profits will also go to our kids. I made sure I was on that sign-up sheet.
The meeting ended. It was time to pay the deposit. In our notebooks was a precise, itemized cost for all the training, travel and convention fees. It was clearly explained that the deposit was non-refundable. If for some reason we weren’t able to raise all the needed money for the trip the money would be applied to the next iPOP convention trip which would happen in 6 months.
I thought of past times when several of our kids were invited to travel with a school class to Washington, DC. We never let them participate mostly due to the cost and the required fundraisers. I thought of the fundraising in the past for our kids to go to drum major camp and band competitions. I reflected on the moment I turned down a trip to Germany in college with my German class because of the cost. Then I thought of the determination of our other daughter who figured out how to gather funds for a study abroad trip around the world. I also recalled a young and gifted harpist in our community, Emily Endicott. She was ready in her training to move up to a professional harp, an instrument with a price tag of several thousand dollars. She chose to invite our community to help her raise the funds, and she gave harp performances until finally she raised all the money she needed for her new instrument.
The nice thing about our small town is that when the community is motivated they do amazing things with helping others. Many people know our family; we’ve been here a long time and participated in many community programs. It seems like people would be excited for Maria and James and want to help with this.
I looked at Maria and James. Decision time was here, and it rested heavily on Maria because she had volunteered to pay the deposit money with her own funds for both she and James. Maria said, “I am doing this because I know it is the right step for me. I am still willing to help James.”
And so, the money was paid, the commitment made and we will move forward with optimism.
Friday, August 14, 2009
July 26, 2009 Call Backs !!
We didn’t actually hover over the phone, but we were very aware of the phone’s silence as we got ready to go to church this morning. The JRP person told us that everyone that auditioned would get a phone call with their decision. (Read about the audition in the July 25 archived post)
I was hopeful for James & Maria, and I was aware that I needed to continue planning on how to make my way back into the music scene regardless of the outcome from my audition. I am astounded that I can sing again after the trauma of having a paralyzed vocal chord. I am looking forward to seeing what I can do now that I can sing again.
Waiting for the phone call, I think James was feeling nervous, apprehensive…He is still unaware of what a gifted singer he is, which is why he is so enjoyable to be around,I suppose. Music seems to be just joy to him, regardless if anyone is listening or not. He really, really wants to go to Los Angeles and perform, I think, to feel like he is moving forward in his musical path. Maria has loved theater and music “forever” and hopes to have a career in the entertainment field, preferably acting.
So there we were watching the clock, glancing at the phone. Then it rang. I answered and it was Robert from JRP. I switched to speaker phone so James could listen in. After a few minutes Maria drifted in to hear the conversation as well.
Robert said that our audition judge, Tiffany, the VP from the iPOP national organization was very pleased with our auditions. She felt that James and Maria were very “marketable” and would make some great contacts in Los Angeles; she invited them to perform at iPOP in January.
James’ face was very animated, large blue eyes and a big grin. Maria was smiling. I was happy for them. In the back of my mind I also knew we were in for a huge fundraising objective. A bit of queasiness for me regarding the money….
Robert then said that Tiffany did some checking on the potential line-up of agents at the convention that represented adults, not just teens or children. She said that there would be a few, but not a large group of them. She really liked my audition and decided that she wanted to leave it up to me because with only a few agents there it may not be worth all the effort for me to go to the convention. She said that if Maria and James raised the money for their part of the convention training and trip that she would “comp” me to go with them. Free air travel, free hotel, free convention fees, etc. So, Tiffany said that I could either go as a parent chaperone or I could choose to go as a performer and compete in the adult category at the iPOP convention.
Wow, no long contemplation required by me over that choice. “I’d like to go as a performer,” I said and James and Maria smiled. The three of us were embarking on a great adventure.
I was hopeful for James & Maria, and I was aware that I needed to continue planning on how to make my way back into the music scene regardless of the outcome from my audition. I am astounded that I can sing again after the trauma of having a paralyzed vocal chord. I am looking forward to seeing what I can do now that I can sing again.
Waiting for the phone call, I think James was feeling nervous, apprehensive…He is still unaware of what a gifted singer he is, which is why he is so enjoyable to be around,I suppose. Music seems to be just joy to him, regardless if anyone is listening or not. He really, really wants to go to Los Angeles and perform, I think, to feel like he is moving forward in his musical path. Maria has loved theater and music “forever” and hopes to have a career in the entertainment field, preferably acting.
So there we were watching the clock, glancing at the phone. Then it rang. I answered and it was Robert from JRP. I switched to speaker phone so James could listen in. After a few minutes Maria drifted in to hear the conversation as well.
Robert said that our audition judge, Tiffany, the VP from the iPOP national organization was very pleased with our auditions. She felt that James and Maria were very “marketable” and would make some great contacts in Los Angeles; she invited them to perform at iPOP in January.
James’ face was very animated, large blue eyes and a big grin. Maria was smiling. I was happy for them. In the back of my mind I also knew we were in for a huge fundraising objective. A bit of queasiness for me regarding the money….
Robert then said that Tiffany did some checking on the potential line-up of agents at the convention that represented adults, not just teens or children. She said that there would be a few, but not a large group of them. She really liked my audition and decided that she wanted to leave it up to me because with only a few agents there it may not be worth all the effort for me to go to the convention. She said that if Maria and James raised the money for their part of the convention training and trip that she would “comp” me to go with them. Free air travel, free hotel, free convention fees, etc. So, Tiffany said that I could either go as a parent chaperone or I could choose to go as a performer and compete in the adult category at the iPOP convention.
Wow, no long contemplation required by me over that choice. “I’d like to go as a performer,” I said and James and Maria smiled. The three of us were embarking on a great adventure.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
July 25, 2009 Seattle Audition, did we make it??
Last Saturday, July 25, 2009, We drove to Seattle for an Open Audition. If you know our family, you know that auditioning isn't new to us....over the years we have all presented our talents several times in many different situations. Even Jim, who is not a stage performer, attended baseball try-outs several times in his past, which were quite successful for him.
Traveling to Seattle with me were our daughter Maria, age 26, Broadway-type singer and previously trained in acting and commercial work; and James, age 17, a devoted musician and singer being guided by David Archuleta’s vocal coach. They are our youngest daughter and youngest son; we have two other daughters and two other sons in other parts of the country at present. (Six children aged 30-17, awesome people.)
We learned of this audition opportunity from on-line info seen by Maria. The information regarding this audition sounded interesting--a Seattle acting school would be choosing a team of performers to take to a convention in Los Angeles. At the convention would be agents, producers, and record label reps. This convention is called "iPOP" (International Presentation of Performers). It is held every 6 months and is sponsored by John Robert Powers Modeling and Acting Academy (JRP). JRP seems to be a franchised school which is also located in different regions throughout the USA, I really don’t know anything about it yet.
My mind was open to possibilities during the drive up to Seattle, and having dabbled a bit in the entertainment world when we lived in Las Vegas years ago, I was already aware of flaky practices and schemes in the Industry. Luckily, I ended up avoiding most of them and had wonderful learning and performing times in Las Vegas. I was curious to see which way this iPOP audition went—legitimate or not. Either way I knew that auditioning is always a great experience, generally a learning time, and was sure we would all learn “something” from the day. Here is a link to the iPOP convention, http://www.ipopconvention.com/ (copy/paste the URL if the link doesn’t work)
We arrived in downtown Seattle in just under two hours, not too bad traffic-wise. Living in a small town, nearly equidistant from both Seattle and Portland, we are used to the drive, though it’s not my favorite activity. It was easy to locate the large Macy’s department store and a nearby parking garage. The audition was held in a large, beautifully appointed meeting room on the Third floor of the building. Side note—we had never had occasion to enter the downtown, multi-floored Macy’s store before this day and the three of us drank in our classy surroundings like….well…like people from a small town. It was also impressive to note that the Macy’s employees were excessively cheerful and helpful, a contrast from the busy mall-employed Macy’s personnel we are used to near our hometown.
The JRP presentation and those presenting it were much more down-to-earth than I anticipated. Of course there was exciting build-up while waiting for the program to begin---intense bass-driven music and a large screen looping a DVD showing cuts of movies and print ads from previous iPOP-attending agents. We were given a packet of information regarding iPOP, an (impressive) list of “typically” attending agencies, and a very up-front list of the schedule of events and a break-down of the cost for the convention.
Then the Vice-president of the national convention spoke to us. She, apparently, doesn’t attend all regional auditions but tries to attend the Seattle ones because the Seattle JRP performers “do really well at each convention”. She was very specific regarding what they were looking for at the audition as regards the level of skill and confidence in a performer. That interested me; if they were only trying to make money surely they would determine “everyone” to be talented--more people, hence, more money intake.
The reason that JRP is so selective, it turns out, is because that makes the convention a strong draw for legitimate agencies. The agents like to attend iPOP because they know that all the performers that come there are pre-screened, trained and ready to start working immediately. Makes sense.
I felt a bit apprehensive as I looked around the room and also watched the DVD. Auditioners and performers alike all seemed to be aged 4-to-late 20s. Yes, you guessed it, I am a “baby boomer”, several decades older than 25. Oh well, if I couldn’t audition, at least I knew that Maria and James would have a good experience being able to audition. Then, I noted that on the entry forms were places to list the JRP classes we had attended. We had attended none. Hmmm, I hoped we hadn’t driven all this way for nothing.
Our entry numbers were called and we spoke first with the JRP director briefly. He was very friendly and reassured us that, Yes, this was an open audition, we didn’t need to be affiliated with JRP or their classes; and Yes, iPOP does have a competitive division for adults as well as children.
We were passed on to one of the two judging stations. I was pleased to note that we were headed towards the national VP guest judge for our auditions. She took us one by one, and filmed each audition. We each presented the dialogue of a commercial that we had previously memorized, and then each sang part of a song we had chosen; there was no background music. A nerve-racking experience for some; I was more jittery giving my commercial about the benefits of Panasonic Toughbook 30 than I planned on. But, having performed for the last decade as a singer with a big swing band I was happily in my element singing to the judge.
James and Maria both delivered their parts very well. Our judge was warm, and reassuring and said that both James and Maria would be very marketable at the convention. She noted that James especially was at a “perfect age” for this, that he had the looks, intelligence (she had asked his GPA), and a gifted singing voice, and most guys his age weren’t interested in performing because of involvement in sports and other activities.
She also praised my performance, but said that she needed to do some checking on the Convention situation regarding me. She said that most of the agents there were interested in children and teens, though there were some groups looking for adult talent. She said that it didn’t make sense for me to go through the expense and stress of being part of the JRP team if there were not going to be many agencies at the convention to see me.
They gave no definite acceptances or rejections at that moment. We were told we would get a phone call the next day after they all reviewed our audition tapes. I was feeling happy with the experience, I had just enjoyed singing. Many of you out there know I am just coming out of a medical situation which was very traumatic for me, not being able to sing at all for more than a year due to vocal chord paralysis. Plus, I knew that I definitely did not fit in the “young adult” age category for the audition that day so if it didn’t work out for me I was okay. It would be fun to see how things turned out for James and Maria.
Traveling to Seattle with me were our daughter Maria, age 26, Broadway-type singer and previously trained in acting and commercial work; and James, age 17, a devoted musician and singer being guided by David Archuleta’s vocal coach. They are our youngest daughter and youngest son; we have two other daughters and two other sons in other parts of the country at present. (Six children aged 30-17, awesome people.)
We learned of this audition opportunity from on-line info seen by Maria. The information regarding this audition sounded interesting--a Seattle acting school would be choosing a team of performers to take to a convention in Los Angeles. At the convention would be agents, producers, and record label reps. This convention is called "iPOP" (International Presentation of Performers). It is held every 6 months and is sponsored by John Robert Powers Modeling and Acting Academy (JRP). JRP seems to be a franchised school which is also located in different regions throughout the USA, I really don’t know anything about it yet.
My mind was open to possibilities during the drive up to Seattle, and having dabbled a bit in the entertainment world when we lived in Las Vegas years ago, I was already aware of flaky practices and schemes in the Industry. Luckily, I ended up avoiding most of them and had wonderful learning and performing times in Las Vegas. I was curious to see which way this iPOP audition went—legitimate or not. Either way I knew that auditioning is always a great experience, generally a learning time, and was sure we would all learn “something” from the day. Here is a link to the iPOP convention, http://www.ipopconvention.com/ (copy/paste the URL if the link doesn’t work)
We arrived in downtown Seattle in just under two hours, not too bad traffic-wise. Living in a small town, nearly equidistant from both Seattle and Portland, we are used to the drive, though it’s not my favorite activity. It was easy to locate the large Macy’s department store and a nearby parking garage. The audition was held in a large, beautifully appointed meeting room on the Third floor of the building. Side note—we had never had occasion to enter the downtown, multi-floored Macy’s store before this day and the three of us drank in our classy surroundings like….well…like people from a small town. It was also impressive to note that the Macy’s employees were excessively cheerful and helpful, a contrast from the busy mall-employed Macy’s personnel we are used to near our hometown.
The JRP presentation and those presenting it were much more down-to-earth than I anticipated. Of course there was exciting build-up while waiting for the program to begin---intense bass-driven music and a large screen looping a DVD showing cuts of movies and print ads from previous iPOP-attending agents. We were given a packet of information regarding iPOP, an (impressive) list of “typically” attending agencies, and a very up-front list of the schedule of events and a break-down of the cost for the convention.
Then the Vice-president of the national convention spoke to us. She, apparently, doesn’t attend all regional auditions but tries to attend the Seattle ones because the Seattle JRP performers “do really well at each convention”. She was very specific regarding what they were looking for at the audition as regards the level of skill and confidence in a performer. That interested me; if they were only trying to make money surely they would determine “everyone” to be talented--more people, hence, more money intake.
The reason that JRP is so selective, it turns out, is because that makes the convention a strong draw for legitimate agencies. The agents like to attend iPOP because they know that all the performers that come there are pre-screened, trained and ready to start working immediately. Makes sense.
I felt a bit apprehensive as I looked around the room and also watched the DVD. Auditioners and performers alike all seemed to be aged 4-to-late 20s. Yes, you guessed it, I am a “baby boomer”, several decades older than 25. Oh well, if I couldn’t audition, at least I knew that Maria and James would have a good experience being able to audition. Then, I noted that on the entry forms were places to list the JRP classes we had attended. We had attended none. Hmmm, I hoped we hadn’t driven all this way for nothing.
Our entry numbers were called and we spoke first with the JRP director briefly. He was very friendly and reassured us that, Yes, this was an open audition, we didn’t need to be affiliated with JRP or their classes; and Yes, iPOP does have a competitive division for adults as well as children.
We were passed on to one of the two judging stations. I was pleased to note that we were headed towards the national VP guest judge for our auditions. She took us one by one, and filmed each audition. We each presented the dialogue of a commercial that we had previously memorized, and then each sang part of a song we had chosen; there was no background music. A nerve-racking experience for some; I was more jittery giving my commercial about the benefits of Panasonic Toughbook 30 than I planned on. But, having performed for the last decade as a singer with a big swing band I was happily in my element singing to the judge.
James and Maria both delivered their parts very well. Our judge was warm, and reassuring and said that both James and Maria would be very marketable at the convention. She noted that James especially was at a “perfect age” for this, that he had the looks, intelligence (she had asked his GPA), and a gifted singing voice, and most guys his age weren’t interested in performing because of involvement in sports and other activities.
She also praised my performance, but said that she needed to do some checking on the Convention situation regarding me. She said that most of the agents there were interested in children and teens, though there were some groups looking for adult talent. She said that it didn’t make sense for me to go through the expense and stress of being part of the JRP team if there were not going to be many agencies at the convention to see me.
They gave no definite acceptances or rejections at that moment. We were told we would get a phone call the next day after they all reviewed our audition tapes. I was feeling happy with the experience, I had just enjoyed singing. Many of you out there know I am just coming out of a medical situation which was very traumatic for me, not being able to sing at all for more than a year due to vocal chord paralysis. Plus, I knew that I definitely did not fit in the “young adult” age category for the audition that day so if it didn’t work out for me I was okay. It would be fun to see how things turned out for James and Maria.
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