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“Yes…” I cleared my throat. “Yes, I did.”
“And he wrote an actual recommendation letter on your behalf?”
“Yes sir.”
He looked at me in utter disbelief. Shock. “You expect me to believe that when you dance so stiffly? When you’re a count behind each and every step?”
“Yes…” My voice was a whisper.
“Well…At least you can always say that you studied under one of the greatest choreographers of all time. You can leave my theater now.”
My heart sank. “What?”
“I don’t think you’re a good fit for our company. We’ll email you this evening with a link to purchase discounted tickets for the season’s shows.”
A tear rolled down my face, and as if he could see that he’d just broken my heart, he patted my shoulder.
“I can tell that you’ve had training,” he said. “Very good training. And I can see that you have potential, but we’re not interested in potential here. For the rest of you, congratulations! You’ve earned yourselves a spot in the next round of auditions. Now, please clear the stage so the next group of dancers may perform.”
A loud applause arose from the hopefuls in the audience, and I felt as if I was watching my life fall apart in front of me. Hurt, I followed the dancers to the side steps—unsure of what to do next.
Grabbing my bag, I avoided the pathetic glances of the hopefuls and shook my head.
“That just goes to show you,” Mr. Ashcroft said to the other panelists, laughing, “even Petrova picks duds sometimes.”
I turned around.
Enraged, I marched up the stage’s steps and took a seat on the white line. I untied my right slipper and prepared another one—bending it forward and backward until it felt right.
“You can change your shoes in the restroom, Miss Everhart.” Mr. Ashcroft chided. “The stage is for actual performers. Or did Petrova not teach you that?”
“I need another chance,” I said. “Just because I didn’t nail the Balanchine piece that doesn’t make me a bad dancer.”
“Of course it doesn’t, honey.” He mocked me. “It makes you a failed dancer, who is currently using my stage and sucking up precious audition time for those who might actually make the cut in my company.”
I walked over to the pianist. “Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake. Act two, scene fourteen. Do you know that piece?”
“Umm…” He looked confused.
“Do you know it or not?”
“Yes, but—” He pointed to another judge who was now standing and crossing her arms.
“Could you please play it?” I pleaded with my eyes. “It’s only three minutes long.”
He let out a sigh and straightened his back, strumming the keys of the piano. With no count off, he played the first few notes of the concerto and the softs sounds echoed off the theater’s walls.
>The sidewalks were persistently packed with people rushing to get somewhere, the streets were seas of taxis, and the cacophony of sounds—the shouting from the street vendors, the rumbling of the subway below, and the endless chatter between the executives and casual-ites all blended into an almost pleasing melody.
Not that I had much time to listen to it, anyway.
The second I arrived in New York last week, I’d checked into a cheap hotel and rushed to register for the NYCB audition.
Every day for the past week, I jumped out of bed at four in the morning and headed to Lincoln Center to learn the required audition piece—the hardest choreography I’d encountered in my life.
It was faster, choppier, and the instructors refused to show it more than twice a day. There was no conversation outside of tempo counts, no questions were allowed either. On top of that, the company’s pianist only elected to play the accompanying music at full speed, never slowing down to make the learning process easier.
There were hundreds of girls vying for a place in the company, and from what I gathered from conversations here or there, most of them were already professionals.
