To really get the full impact of this story, you need to have two key pieces of information:

1) First of all, I really do not sing well.  No, really.  I can pretty much stay on the melody, but I have a comfortable range of about five notes and absolutely no vibrata or deviation in my voice at all.  Very flat and dull.  Not a good singing voice.  Just ask my kids.

2) Secondly, you need to know that my wife, unlike me, can, in fact, sing, and sing well.  Tammy has always dreamed of singing on stage in a large chorus — no aspirations to be the star — but just part of the singing masses.  We watched the 25th anniversary concert of Les Mis on TV a while back and she remarked how she just wanted to be one those singers in the Les Mis screen print t-shirt standing in the back singing their faces off.

Now you know what you need to know to appreciate this story.

“Do You Hear the People Sing”,  a concert version of Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and other shows put together by Boubil and Schonberg was scheduled to be playing at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.  Such stage names as Brian Stokes Mitchel, Terrance Mann, and Lea Salonga would be headlining.  Tammy and I had gotten a couple of tickets for the cheap seats and figured that would be the extent of our involvement with this event.  Then a friend of ours who is active in the Dallas theatre community let us know that she had auditioned for the large chorus for the upcoming show and that another audition would be coming up in a few weeks.  The Turtle Creek Mens Chorale would be taking care of most of the men’s part in the chorus, but auditions were being set up to fill the women’s spots.  Our friend gave us the number for the music director in case Tammy was interested in auditioning.  Tammy has a great voice but has only done chorale work in high school and church.  She wasn’t very enthusiastic about trying out for something that was that far out of her league.  I had a difficult time letting her allow this opportunity to get past her if this was something that she felt she would really love to do, but after a few days, she still hadn’t made any inquiries regarding qualifications, times of auditions or anything.  So, then I got an idea.

I called the music director and talked to him about the auditions and about Tammy. And then I asked him if the mens auditions were strictly closed.  He said that they were pretty well covered on the mens parts, but they were still possibly looking for a few tenors to round out the section.  I told him I would be there for the auditions (and immediately felt a little sick).  I actually have no clue if I’m a tenor, a bass, a baritone, a trombone.. no idea (refer back to point 1).  But I knew if I told Tammy that I would be auditioning for the chorus of “Do You Hear the People Sing” when it came to Dallas, she wouldn’t be able to just sit this one out.  And I was right. 

So, Tammy got the sheet music that she needed to learn for the audition.  It was a total of 20 words and was literally four pages of sheet music.  I was learning the tenor part (since I was now a self-declared tenor) and Tammy was learning the alto parts.  Here’s the line — “Tomorrow, we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store.  One more dawn.  One more day.  One day more.”  That’s it.  That’s the entire audition.  We both worked really hard on learning all the different notes and how they worked together with the bass and soprano (wow – I even know what that means now).  I pecked it out on the piano about a hundred times.  My piano playing of the piece got a lot better, but frankly, my singing never did.  But I was chalking this up to a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.  We both saw this whole series of events as something absolutely ridiculous but just too absurd to pass on. 

So fast forward to the big day.  Auditions were at 6:00 at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Dallas.  Here’s how it went down:

We all went into a large hall full of folding chairs and a piano.  We had to fill out a card with our name, info, height and singing part (I’m a tenor, remember?).  There were only a few guys in the hall since this was primarily meant to be a women’s audition, but I already knew that he was also considering a couple of extra tenors.  Then the auditions began.

The music director would call out for any four women to come up to the front — 2 sopranos and 2 altos — and have them sing those 20 words all together.  And this was not in a separate room but right there in front of everyone in the hall!!  Then he would pair the women up differently and have them sing again until he was satisfied.  Then he would excuse those four to sit back down and ask for four more volunteers.  Tammy wouldn’t go up for the first several rounds because it was obvious that this wasn’t the first rodeo for most of these women.  Huge voices.  It was a very intimidating situation, and Tammy wasn’t even positive about how part of the piece should even be sung, so she carefully watched several rounds before she finally, and reluctantly, walked to front of the room to meet three other women from the audience of auditioners.  After about 15 seconds of greeting and instruction, the music director had them all sing, paired them up into different combinations to sing again.  And one more time. Then politely thanked them and asked them to have a seat.  Tammy looked a little shell-shocked as she walked back to sit down next to me.  It was like she was having an out-of-body experience. After all of the women had auditioned, he asked if any of the men were there to audition for a tenor spot.  Three men walked up to the front by the piano.  This was my moment.  My goal for the evening had already been achieved — Tammy had auditioned for a choral role in the show.  Nothing I was going to do at this point was going to change that.  Mission accomplished.  I sat there for a while just looking at Tammy.  I knew she wanted me to at least give it a whirl — it would make a good story if nothing else.  So, I could feel myself standing up and walking forward to the front of the room.  What was I doing?  If these guys were only half as good as the women I had heard so far, I was about to make a complete fool of myself (refer once again to point 1).  So, I stood there shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow tenors and the piano player started in with the intro. (Okay, I can do this).   Suddenly all three of the men starting singing a song that wasn’t the one that I had rehearsed over and over with Tammy all week.  Apparently, the mens audition song was different than the womens audition song (which anyone in the audition world would have expected — who knew?).  I knew none of the words — not one — so I just stood there like Cindy Brady on that quiz show staring into the camera. My face felt like it was on fire.  I’m certain that they were only singing a line or two, but it seemed as if they were singing the entire song while I stood in awkward silence.  Now it was my turn to look shell-shocked. After the first run through, the music director walked over to me and very politely asked me if I was there to sing for the tenor role?  I told him that I was actually just waiting for a good opportunity to go back to my seat.  With a raised eyebrow, he nodded his head and said, “Now’s good.” 

As mortifying as that may sound, it was actually a huge relief.  I still carried through with my end of the bargain without actually having to show this roomful of incredible singers that I had absolutely no reason in the world to be there.

So, needless to say, I was not part of the chorus for the show, but I was the proudest member of the audience as I cheered for my brave and amazing bride who finally got to sing her face off in her Les Mis screen print t-shirt along with Brian Stokes Mitchel and Lea Salonga. 

Tammy has done so many more significant things than this in her life, but she took a great chance to step out into the unknown to do something that she felt was completely out of reach for her.  And she got it.  And she was fantastic.  I’ve never been prouder.

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