Few opportunities come around once in a lifetime—like winning the lottery, landing your dream job, going on a safari to the Congo or meeting Gerard Butler—but a handful of Taylor Place residents are taking advantage of one such opportunity to audition for one of their favorite television shows: Fox’s “Glee.”
Journalism sophomore Sammie Fitzgerald, journalism freshman Blanche McElroy, public relations and theater freshman Stacy Gollinger and journalism sophomore Alex Reese are just a few of the downtown students who auditioned for “Glee” during the show’s open casting call on MySpace.com. The four students’ love for the award-winning show about a high school glee club and their life-long passion for singing, led them to record and post a video of themselves singing on the “Glee” MySpace page.
“I’m not the best singer in the world but music is like my oxygen, and I really think that it can change the world,” said Fitzgerald, who has been performing since the third grade. “Music brings everybody together, it brings all cultures together, different backgrounds together and ‘Glee’ really dictates that.”
Since the auditions opened on March 30, about 70,000 people have uploaded videos in hopes of nabbing a chance to join the cast of “Glee,” but Reese, who said she has been singing since before she could talk, said she refused to let those odds dissuade her from trying.
“You really never know,” Reese said. “It’s a total shot in the dark, but it could happen.”
Reese said she feared that if she did not audition she would regret it later.
All of the contestants were asked to submit a personal statement video explaining why they thought they deserved a spot on the show in addition to a video in which the contestants sing one of the songs provided.
Although she said she is confident in her song video, Gollinger said she thought her statement video would make her stand out. In it she gets a slushy thrown in her face, similar to the characters on the show, she said.
“The slushy in the face is probably the thing that will set me apart the most just because, you know, it’s different and it just shows that I’m willing to try and do anything,” Gollinger explained. “Nothing can stop me from getting what I want. I’ll take a slushy in the face for it.”
McElroy, who has been singing since she was about five years old, said she thinks her song performance will make her stand out.
“When I was going through all the videos, people … weren’t singing loud enough, and I’m a really belt-it-out singer,” she said. McElroy also said that she believes her personality will grab the judges’ attention.
The winner of the contest will be announced before July 1, Gollinger said.
Should they win, Fitzgerald said she will freak out, Gollinger said she will scream and McElroy said she would cry.
“I would probably have a heart attack but be very, very happy and pray to the Lord and thank him,” McElroy said. “I would tell my parents, ‘Thank you for trying to get me through college but I’m going to go to LA.’”
Reese said she would be wary at first.
“I would probably not believe it, to be honest with you,” she said. “I’d probably think, ‘This is a scam. You’re so lying to me. What are you doing?’ But, I would freak out and I would have a huge party and I would buy everyone Starbucks.”
Fitzgerald added that she thinks the casting call was also a successful marketing device for the show.
“The whole nation-wide casting call was really smart on the producer’s part, on the casting director’s part and Fox in general,” she said. “It hyped up the show and it got people who probably wouldn’t post videos of themselves singing on the web to do it and just kind of get themselves out there, which is actually really, really cool.”
Beyond the chance of starring on the show, Fitzgerald said the open casting call gave her an opportunity to meet people.
“I’ve also made a lot of new friends within the whole audition process because I’ll find people and then I’ll kind of look them up on MySpace or Facebook and say, ‘Hey, you know, I saw your audition and it was really awesome,’” she explained. “So, it is kind of bringing people together in a different way.”
Gollinger agreed that, even if she does not make it, she will walk away with more than just a story.
The casting call “gives me the confidence to move forward no matter how this turns out … to follow my dream to one day be on Broadway,” Gollinger said.
Contact the reporter at ehcarpen@asu.edu
