A New Life!

Wow it's been a while since my last post. Since then, I've had two auditions in Pittsburgh, one for CLO and one for a company called Latshaw Productions. I'm in the mood to write, so I'll fill you in on both as best I remember... it's been a long few months.


My CLO audition was a bit of a debacle. I stayed at my cousins house the night before so that I could get to my audition without having to drive from home that day. I had to run to Kinko's before to get my music photocopied and a binder for my music and my resume. With all of the traffic on the parkway I got downtown with only a few minutes to spare, but when I walked into the Benedum for the audition no one knew what I was talking about. I called my friend Ted and when he didn't answer his phone, the usher said, "Maybe you're supposed to go to the Stage Door?" Which sounded familiar so they told me how to get there and I literally ran down the block to the stage door entrance. I walked into the theatre with two minutes to spare, had to fill out my audition sheet as quickly as possible. I was concerned that I would forget my lyrics but I went in with "Neverland" from Peter Pan and I felt that it went exceedingly well. They asked me to wait outside and they would let us know who got a callback. I was, unfortunately, not one of the ones to get a callback and of course I was disappointed but the more rejection I hear the stronger I'll become. I don't ever want to hear no, but the no's will ultimately make the yes's that much sweeter.


My audition for Latshaw Productions was even worse, lol. I, again, stayed at my cousin's house the night before in order to be ready since the audition was in Monroeville and his house is 10 minutes from the audition space. The entire weekend didn't go as planned. I hung out with my friend Sally on Friday night and ended up dying her hair which took WAY longer than planned. We were up until 9am Saturday morning. We slept for a few hours and then got up and went to get her hair cut. Between the nap and getting her hair cut we stopped at my house for me to get packed for the weekend in Pittsburgh. We went into the Cranberry area and it took us a while to find a salon that didn't have a wait and we finally ended up at Walmart. I ended up leaving Sally at Walmart and leaving for Pittsburgh in order to get there to meet Andy for Ted's show.

I was late getting to Andy's due to the events of the day and the traffic coming into the city. We also had some driving problems so we came into the show about 5-10 minutes late. I felt really bad but we apparently didn't miss much of the show. The only problem was that our tickets were directly in the center of a row and the place was packed so we had to climb over people to get to our seats. It was fantastic... the girls in the show were phenomenal, especially the girl who played Rizzo. Every time she opened her mouth to sing I had chills over my ENTIRE body. Even my scalp had chills! I got a little teary when she sang There are Worse Things I Could Do. After the show we saw Ted for a bit and congratulated him on a great show (he was the director) and then we headed back to Andy's house. We watched Singin' in the Rain since I had never seen it... I know, it's hard to believe, right? :-) After the movie was over I headed back to Curtis' house to get ready for my audition the next day.

I was having trouble printing Maybe This Time in the key that I wanted so I decided to abandon that idea for my backup. I had brought my "Thoroughly Modern Millie" book as my other song because I wanted to have two jazzy songs (that's the type of music that Latshaw performs). So I went to get my other book so that I could be prepared to sing On my Own from Les Mis... and found out I had brought the wrong book. Needless to say I started freaking out. I ended up deciding on Not for the Life of Me from "Millie" and Someone Like You from "Jekyll and Hyde". I wasn't happy about it but I had to adapt. I REALLY need to get an audition binder together.

The next day I started out from my house at 10:30 so that I could get to Kinko's in time to get my music xeroxed to go into my binder. I didn't know the address to the Kinko's so I had to Google Map it and when I got to the address... it didn't exist. So I drove around until I found the one on Penn Avenue. I was REALLY running late at this point (it was 11:05 by the time I got to Kinko's and my audition was at 11:30) and I was freaking out that I wasn't going to make it. I got my music photo copied and 3-hole punched and into my binder and I was on my way to the audition site. However, when I got to the place where Max (my GPS) told me I was supposed to go, there was no school. I stopped and talked to a guy who told me how to get to the correct road (apparently I was on "Haymaker" and needed to be on "Old Haymaker". So I started driving in the direction that he told me... and ended up passing the school. I had to go about 15 minutes out of my way to get back to the school. When it hit 11:30 I just started bawling because I knew I was screwed. I called Rachel, who also had an audition and she helped me get to the school and told the director what was happening. They were really great, but I was still 15 minutes late for my audition.

I walked in, marked my music where I wanted to sing and almost immediately walked into the audition room. Even though everything else in the day was horrible, I sang really well. It was probably my strongest audition to date. We then had a dance audition... and that was kind of comical, actually. I haven't had a dance class in years and my retention isn't where it used to be when it comes to dance. After I realized that I wasn't even close to the best dancer in the room I just started smiling like an idiot the whole time. I figured if I can't outshine the other dancers, I can out smile them, lol. At the end of the audition I had absolutely no idea where I stood. Rachel, on the other hand, was asked to grab her tap shoes and was held longer than the rest of us. I was so proud of her. She told me a few days later that she got a callback and has since gotten the job. I didn't get a callback but I'm fine with it. I knew after being late that I had little to no chance of getting the job.

I ended up staying in Pittsburgh until Wednesday morning because I had an audition at the Meadows Casino and Racetrack for a job as a Table Games Dealer. That actually went much better than anticipated.


I walked into the Casino which, incidentally was my first time in any casino, and I was immediately blown away by the sheer size of the place.


I walked up to the security table and they pointed me in the direction of Silks, the section of the casino where the entertainment typically performs. I got my number, filled out some paperwork and walked to the holding area and waited to be called. When I was called I walked up to the table and introduced myself. I had this whole thing speech planned about having grown up on the stage. I said to the proctors "I've been performing since I was three..." and they immediately asked me what I did. When I told them that I sing, they asked me to sing for them and I sang Maybe This Time. I got through the first stanza...

Maybe this time, I'll be lucky.
Maybe this time he'll stay.
Maybe this time... for the first time
Love won't hurry away.

...and they stopped me, handed me a paper and told me to go see Lance in the bowling alley.


I took the math test and made my way down to the bowling alley. I talked to Lance, who I have since found out is the Director of table games at The Meadows, and started to meet my future co-workers. It was a lot of fun. I bowled a game and ate some pizza and nachos and then left around nine to hang out with some of my friends. I was so happy to go to the casino and now I'm entering my third week of training. It's going really well and I know I will love this job.


Since these auditions I have moved to Pittsburgh to live with my cousin. I'm loving this city so much! On any given night, if I try hard enough, I can find something to do. Tonight I had a migraine so I'm a bit wiped out but I have had so much fun in the small amount of time that I've been here. Last night I met a friend of mine from college and we rode the incline up to the top of the city, walked around and took some pictures.


This is a picture of the city from the top of the incline. I honestly think that this the most beautiful sight I've seen in a long time. I absolutely love living here.


This is a picture of Brandon Durica and me at one of the picture points.



This is another picture of Brandon and me at one of the picture points.



On Monday I was hanging out with Ted, Andy and Nick and Andy told me that he could probably get me into the ensemble in Urinetown: the Musical if I was interested. I told him that I was absolutely interested and he emailed the director that night. The next morning I got an email from the director saying "Welcome to our cast!" I was so excited... especially since they're already a month into production. Around 4:00 Wednesday afternoon I got a text from Andy warning me that there was a chance that, depending on how well I dance, I could be asked to understudy one of the smaller leads for opening night because the girl who is playing Little Becky Two-Shoes is graduating from Duquesne that night and cannot make it to the show. I thanked him for the heads up and went to rehearsal that night. About 3/4 of the way through the rehearsal the choreographer told me that I would need to learn her part. She said that when Andy told her how much dance experience I have and when the director saw my resume they decided that I would do the part. So, basically I will be playing Little Becky Two-Shoes on opening night at the McKeesport Little Theatre! Every other night I'll be in the ensemble but I'm still SOO excited to be involved in a musical again... especially one I love as much as I love Urinetown. I'll try to take pictures and keep you guys updated on the progress of the show.


I just signed up the other day for another audition for CLO for the 25th for the production of 'S Wonderful. My audition is slated for 6:00 and now that I've had an audition I feel that I'll be a little bit more prepared for the next one. Also, Ted hooked me up with a voice coach, so I will have two lessons before my audition so that will be great.

Well guys, that's all for this post. I'll keep you updated regularly on the progress of Urinetown!

Post Liberty Cabaret Depression and Other News

It's been a while since my last post so I thought it was time. I also have lots to tell you about life since the first weekend of the Liberty Cabaret. I'm still recovering from this nasty little bronchitus flare-up that has been wreaking havoc on all of my singing endeavors. The second weekend of the Liberty Cabaret went really well, although my performance of Dangerous Game with Bryon left a lot to be desired... he was great. Me? Not so much. Another irritating part was that this performance was the only one that was taped. However, Maybe This Time and At Last were probably my strongest performance of each so it's not a total loss. I'm pretty sad to see this one end. We've all become such a tight-knit group that we were all pretty sad to say goodbye to each other. It was probably my last Barrow show, at least for a while so it was hard for me.

As far as the Nunsense audition went, I didn't get a callback. I was a little sad but I knew that it was for the best since a callback would have prevented me from going to work on Monday and I probably would have gotten fired for missing it. The last day of the month is the most important for me, as a billing person. If Billing Day falls on a weekend then we do it on Monday.

Although I didn't get a part in Nunsense, I had a really nice time in Pittsburgh on Sunday night. I started out around 4:30 and got to my friend Ted's house around 6:15. He and I talked about theatre and whatnot for a little over an hour when we both had to leave. Because of the construction that was going on in the theatre district I got a little lost, but ultimately found my way. When I parked in the parking garage closest to the CLO Academy I met a girl named Rachel who was also auditioning for the show. As we were walking to the Academy, we found that we had a lot in common. It was her first audition with CLO as well. Neither of us got called back but we're both auditioning for the summer season in two weeks! Altogether, not a bad first audition. To think I had much of a shot would be ludicrous so I just had fun with it and learned as much as possible.

Liberty Cabaret photos and stories!

Alright guys, so I told you that I would post on Saturday how the show went but Friday night wiped me out until about 5pm the next day (and I'm just not feeling 100% healthy right now) so I thought that I would post some pictures and stories from this weekend. All of the pictures on this post were taken by the wonderful Stephen West of West PA Magazine. Click on any of the photos to see a larger version of the image. Click Here for their website! The first photo is our cast photo... its so fun!


From left to right we have Bill Hennessey, Peg Hennessy, Bret Sloan, Janelle Chambers, Kristen Criado (back at the piano), Tammi Dahl (back at the piano), Rosie Petulla, Ted Smith, Carissa McClintock, Marc Ellis Holland, Me (Katie Kirby-Rogers) and Bryon Gable. How pretty are we? :-)


This is the same basic premise as the last shot but with us acting "candid". Cute stuff!


This is Bret Sloan singing the first verse of the opening number "Cabaret". I just adore this boy, everyone does. He has a beautiful voice.


This is a picture of the entire cast on our ending pose of "Cabaret". Unfortunately that's just pop or water in those glasses. :-) We have a lot of fun with that number. It's truly an ensemble piece.


How cute are these two? Janelle Chambers sang "I Could Have Danced All Night" and at the end Bret came in and sang with her. Notice that she's barefoot? She kicks her shoes off to "dance" and at the end Bret picks them up for her and follows her offstage! SOO cute.



More pictures of Janelle and Bret. In the number where she has the parasol, she sang "Let Me Entertain You".


This is the fabulous Marc Ellis Holland... the single most talented person I've ever met. He's a Broadway veteran and we just adore him. He sang "Very Soft Shoes".

DRUMROLL PLEASE.......




The gorgeous Miss Ginger Watkins. She was the star of the evening... I mean, just look at those legs!! Isn't Marc just gorgeous as a woman? I mean, seriously. She sang "Ladies Who Lunch".


Ted Smith, Marc's husband and our fantastic director. He sang "From This Moment On" from Kiss Me Kate. Such a scene stealer, that one. :-)


The baby of our group, Carissa McClintock singing "Being Alive" from Company. I've known this girl for years and I just adore her.

Oh, Rosie. I've known Rosie since 1994 when I was in my first show at the Barrow. She sang "Funny Valentine". She's about the cutest thing in the world when she sings. So much joy!


This is Bill and Peg Hennessey. They have to be one of the cutest married couples I know. They both love performing so much and their rendition of "Timeless to Me" from Hairspray was so much fun!

Finally we have Bryon and me... get ready for it...






We sang "Dangerous Game" from Jekyll & Hyde. It was a great song and I'm SO proud of the work we put into it. The responses have been nothing but positive. This is just the first half of the show, however, so when Stephen posts more I will post and link the rest of them. Both nights of the show went exceedingly well. The audience had a blast and so did we. A lot of audiences don't realize that their reactions can make or break a show. If the energy from the audience is down or if they don't respond much then the cast loses steam and the show drags. Our audiences have been wonderful!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and please subscribe to West PA Magazine if you can. It's a fabulous little magazine and it supports local area businesses.

The Liberty Cabaret Opening Night!!

So here it is... what we have been working towards for the past month... opening day of the Liberty Cabaret! We've all worked really hard on our songs and we're finally here. I am so proud to be involved with this show, it's going to be fabulous. The sales for today are (as of last night) 20 for tonight and 19 for tomorrow. That's about half full and if you put that into perspective, that would be about 250 seats in the big theatre so it's not bad at all! :-)


Isn't our theatre beautiful?

I'll post pictures and accounts tomorrow afternoon, but for now I'll just say that I'm SOO excited. It's going to be a really good time and you should all come!

OH! And tickets WILL NOT be available at the door. Reservations will end at Noon for this weekend and the same goes for next weekend.

Nunsense Auditions at CLO!!

Alright, I know I JUST posted the blog about Vanities but I have some more news for all of you... I have an audition for Nunsense at CLO in Pittsburgh!! I don't know if anything will come of this but I've got to try. My friend Ted told me that the contract for the CLO Cabaret is really good and that I should try for this one as well because it's a good opportunity. Now, on top of choosing songs, I have to learn a monologue for the audition as well. That shouldn't be a problem, more than anything I need to make sure that my songs are appropriate for this kind of audition since it's a comedy. I'm pretty set on Sally's Coat Hanger speech from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown but I'm thinking that I should maybe sing something from Annie, Get Your Gun or Oklahoma since the part I'm going for has a country solo. Then have one song that isn't country at all, just to show off my range. I had actually started to think that I had emailed too late and that I didn't have an audition and then I got the email saying that I have an audition at 8:30 on Sunday January 31st!! This is perfect because I'll have time to rest up from the shenanigans of the last night of the Liberty Cabaret and make it down to Pittsburgh in plenty of time for the audition. OH this is exciting and nerve wracking at the same time, I'm so excited!

Vanities: A New Musical

Alright, so we're finally back to theatre, after a few random posts that had nothing to do with the reason I started this blog. I got an email from Amazon this morning. You know, the kind that they send you because they think they have something you might want based on things you've ordered before. Well this time I think they've got me. They sent me a link to a new show that is being released on CD for the first time since its Broadway Debut last year. This new show is Vanities: A New Musical. When I saw it I immediately thought I was seeing things because I've done a play called Vanities and I thought it wasn't possible that someone had made a musical based off of it... but I was wrong. That's Broadway for you. As much as I love it, there is so much recycling that is done with old shows that you're hard-pressed to find something truly original that doesn't feel familiar. For example, Wicked is just another take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Rent is La Boheme redux, West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet modernized... you know what I'm talking about. This is not to say that I don't love each of these shows, because I do, I'm just yearning for another Urinetown sometime soon... like nothing you've ever seen before.

Anyway, the point of this post is that, although I do get annoyed with the recycling that gets done these days, I am very excited to hear this recording because this play was so much fun to do. I was 17 when I played Mary and oddly enough, although the women playing Joanne and Kathy were in their thirties I played the most adult role in the show and I had a blast! Mary is an interesting character to play. She's the most disenchanted with the group from the beginning, the most sexually promiscuous and eventually ends up being the curator of an erotic art gallery. She's also bisexual. I don't think I fully understood all of the content of the show at that point in my life, but I'm really glad that I did the show. I remember the director, Rosie Petulla, calling my mom to ask her permission for me to be in the show (there weren't auditions for this show) because there was some cursing for my character. The other girls in the show were Sheila Lackey Plymire and Amy Dittman and it was really fun.


This is from the first act, when the girls are in high school... obviously. They are cheerleaders at a Texas high school. The characters are (from what I can tell) Mary (Left), Kathy (Center) and Joanne (Right).


This picture takes place ten years later when the girls are in college and still friends.


From what I can tell from this picture it's from the third act, and another decade has passed. The girls end up reconnecting, but it's not without tears. It's a fantastic show and I'm really hoping to be able to play Mary someday in the musical version. Because that would be SO fun to play her again... and be able to sing while doing it. :-)


And yes, for any of you Disney Channel fans, that redhead is Anneliese Van Der Pol from That's So Raven. It's nice to see her making it on Broadway, she has a beautiful voice.

I think I need to change the premise of this blog... :-)

So I wanted to tell you guys something you may not know about me... I'm a total geek. Theatre, media, art, music, animation, comics... you name something geeky and I have an unhealthy obsession with it. One of the geekiest things I've gotten into is video games. When I was probably 15 (maybe younger, I'm not sure) I was introduced to the world of Warcraft (Not WOW, just the regular kind that you can actually beat and move on with your life) and Diablo. I spent WAY too much time on these games as a kid, and I loved playing the Rogue on Diablo. I wanted to look like her so much that I even did an art project with my face on her body.


This is her... I loved this character so much, she was the only one that could do some real damage to other characters without touching them. The Sorcerer could do magic but he was totally weak in comparison. And he's a man, so that makes him automatically inferior. Sorry... I digress.

Another reason I loved this game was for all of the supporting characters in Tristram, the town in which the game starts. It's all very Celtic and beautiful. I know that there were other games with better graphics but I LOVED this game. The premise, as stated on Blizzard's website (the company that develops Diablo and Warcraft and the like) is:

"An unknown force of evil has swept across the land, plunging it into civil war and terrorizing the populace. A mad king, his missing son, and a mysterious archbishop are all pieces to the puzzle that faces you. You have journeyed to the source of the evil. The town of Tristram, now inhabited by only a handful of survivors. The cathedral there is built over the ruins of an ancient monastery, and now eerie lights and sounds are heard echoing through its abandoned halls."

It never failed... when I walked into a new place with new demons to defeat my heart would race like I was really there... I always got so nervous when I knew that I would be going up against a bunch of demons.



There was a drunk named Farnham that I absolutely loved to talk to, he was always really funny. To give you a few examples...

In response to asking about the poisoned water supply

"(scoffs) You drink water?"

In response to asking about the "Butcher"

"Big! Big cleaver killing all my friends. Couldn't stop him, had to run away, couldn't save them. Trapped in a room with so many bodies...so many friends...noooooooooo!"

Which accounts for his drinking problem I suppose...

In response to asking about Ogden the Innkeeper's missing sign)

"You know what I think? Somebody took that sign, and they gonna want lots of money for it. If I was Ogden... and I'm not, but if I was... I'd just buy a new sign with some pretty drawing on it. Maybe a nice mug of ale or a piece of cheese..."

In response to asking about the Heaven Stone

"I used to have a nice ring; it was a really expensive one, with blue and green and red and silver. Don't remember what happened to it, though. I really miss that ring..."

In response to asking about the Book of the Blind

"Look here... (chuckles) That's pretty funny, huh? Get it? Blind - look here? (laughs)"

In response to asking about the Black Mushroom

"Ogden mixes a mean Black Mushroom, but I get sick if I drink that. Listen, listen... Here's the secret - MODERATION IS THE KEY!"

In response to asking about the Anvil of Fury

"Griswold can't sell his anvil. What will he do then? And I'd be angry too if someone took my anvil!"

In response to asking about the Warlord of Blood

"Always you gotta talk about blood? What about flowers, and sunshine, and that pretty girl that brings the drinks. Listen here, friend - you're obsessive, you know that?"

In response to asking about Lachdanan

"Lachdanan is dead. Everybody knows that, and you can't fool me into thinking any other way. You can't talk to the dead. I know!"

In response to asking about the Chamber of Bone

"Okay, so listen. There's this Chamber of Wood, see. And his wife, you know - her - tells the tree... cause you gotta wait. Then I says, that might work against him, but if you think I'm gonna pay for this... You... uh... yeah."

In response to asking about the Archbishop Lazarus

"They stab, then bite, then they're all around you. Liar! Liar! They're all dead! Dead! Do you hear me? They just keep falling and falling... their blood spilling out all over the floor... All his fault...(groans)"

Now obviously some of these quotes are funnier than others but I find them all entertaining. And he's staggering drunk, so he slurs his words and everything.



The reason for writing this blog post was to express how pumped I am that they're releasing Diablo III soon! Oh it looks GORGEOUS!! Check it out:



Alright... I'm done boring you with my geekiness now. :-) Thanks for reading!