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It Took 72 Auditions
There I was in New York City, no longer as a tourist but now a resident. I called my parents after every audition to give them the complete play-by-play—the good and, on this day, the bad.
“I didn’t get cast again,” I said on the phone through big, heartfelt, blubbery tears. “I think I should come home. It’s never going to happen here for me.”
It was my third audition since I’d moved. All my life had been in preparation for this—since I was five years old and started putting on impromptu concerts of selections from Annie in the living room (red wig and all). Dinner at our house was never just a meal; it was dinner and a show. I knew at a very young age that I loved performing. I had never wanted to do anything else besides make it to New York and be a Broadway star. And now I was finally here in the city that never sleeps, and it was more of a struggle than I’d imagined.
One of my first Broadway auditions was for Belle in Beauty and the Beast. I’d read the casting breakdown, and it was just perfect for me; they were looking for a young brunette soprano ingénue type, spunky and charismatic and just my height.
This is me! I thought. I’ve got this. I walked into that building filled to the brim with confidence until the moment I rounded the corner and saw a hundred other young women who looked exactly like me. All of a sudden, I realized this was not high school or college with a few people vying for the lead role. This was the real deal where there were literally hundreds of qualified people for every role.
There we all were, young brunette soprano ingénues, all holding our books of sheet music, all wearing flowing dresses. I got my first reality check. This is something we all know about before moving to NYC. We hear the stories about thousands of people waiting to be seen, or lines wrapped around a building for an audition, but when you see it with your own eyes, it hits you in the face! I had a moment where I thought, Huh, so those stories are true.
I knew the real world of professional theatre was going to be competitive, but until I stood in that hallway surrounded by talented women, I didn’t realize how competitive. I had no idea how I would ever stand out, and in the end, I didn’t—I didn’t even get a callback for the role I was so sure was meant to be mine.
“Listen,” my dad said. “You have three people involved in this career, and two of us are not worried. Keep going.”
It was a blessing I knew not everyone had—two supportive parents who never once told me that I should have a fallback career. (You’ll get their take on things later on in the book.) They believed in me more than I believed in myself at times, and they reminded me to persevere, stay committed, and move on to the next audition. And so I did!
Seventy-two of them, in fact, before my big break.
There are lots of ways to get into a performing career, but I come at it with my own life experiences and biases about what worked for me. We are all different, but the lessons I learned are applicable to anyone determined to succeed.
My Path to Broadway: Early Lessons Learned
New York City was a long way from my home in Virginia, and a much different atmosphere. I grew up in my mother’s dance studio, Academy of Dance. I began taking classes at the age of three and spent much of my childhood training as a competitive dancer, but I loved to sing just as much. My mom had a clear understanding of the dance world, but the singing world was new to all of us. Finding someone who would teach voice lessons to an eight-year-old was certainly a challenge. My mom had a dear friend who was a highly accomplished voice teacher, a former Miss Alabama and a true Southern belle who wore shoulder pads with everything. She didn’t teach children under the age of twelve, so my mom asked her to meet with me one time as a personal favor. When the lesson ended, I ran out to my mom’s car with a handwritten note. (No cell phones or texting at that time.)
The note read:
The Virginia Opera is holding auditions for its children’s chorus this week and Tiffany needs to audition.
The next day, my mom drove me to Norfolk, where I auditioned for the Virginia Opera children’s chorus. I was accepted, and that turned out to be where I got my first taste of professional performing. It’s also where I found a love of opera and classical music. We performed La Bohème, and a six-foot-five flamboyant man who looked like a black version of Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as my father. I loved it! That wonderful man soon played a very important role in my life.
Starting when I was about ten, I convinced my mother to get me an agent and take me to TV, film, and theatre auditions. We traveled to New York without my dad even knowing sometimes.
One time, we were on the train going over my lines and my dad called. My mother picked up nervously. “Hello?”
“Hi, honey. Do you want to meet for lunch?”
“Well, um…”
“Where are you girls?”
“New York?”
They were a funny balance. My mom was the one who was more spontaneous and creative, and my dad was more practical. He was always supportive, but he didn’t want me missing school. I had a final callback for Interview with the Vampire, and he wouldn’t allow me to go because it meant I would miss the first day of school. I was a wreck about it.
“This is the biggest moment of my life!” I protested.
“The first day of school is the biggest moment of your life, not an audition.”
I can understand and agree with the wisdom of his words now, but it felt like the end of the world at the time, and I dropped to my knees and cried just like a proper little actress.
When I got to middle school and my parents sent me to a private prep school, I floundered and felt like I wasn’t fitting in. All my parents wanted was to give me the best education possible so that I’d be able to go to whatever college I wanted, like my dad, a West Point grad and financial advisor.
The headmistress (a wonderful woman) did me a big favor when she took my father aside and said, “Have you ever used calculus again in your life after school?”
“Never, really,” my father said.
“Neither will she, and she doesn’t want to be a financial advisor. Get her out of this school and put her somewhere she can really thrive and do what she loves.”
It was a shock to my parents to hear such a thing, but they took it to heart. What I loved was performing, and where I belonged was a performing arts school. So in a decision that would change my life, my parents switched gears and put me exactly where I needed to be and where I would thrive … the Governor’s School for the Arts. Looking back, I realize this was a huge sacrifice for my parents because they spent almost three hours a day driving to make this happen!
Copyright © 2019 by Tiffany Haas