Results Are Out and Flashback in a Flashback

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About another week after the call backs, morning assembly was going on as normal. Then right before the teacher was about to finish, the guidance counselor went in front. I lowered my head and tried to ignore him. He was about to announce the cast for the musical. I was certain I wasn't on it so why should I care anymore. Of course, the entire cast was comprised of seniors except 1 who looked like a senior but was 2 batches lower than I was. The Dorothy role had to be split between 2 students. 1 for the morning show and 1 for the evening. It kinda is a unwritten rule that the one who is better usually perform the evening show as more people attend and the morning show is usually for the grade school students to watch.

Some people were cast without even auditioning. That's a normal sight here at CP. People getting roles they didn't want because the teacher's just randomly decided that "hey! They fit my perception of that role. Let's get them!" even if they don't have any acting experience or motivation to do the job. Auditions in CP are usually really lack-luster and generally are less on qualification and more on favoritism.

This reminds me about what happened in Grade 9. We had to have an English play because it was out exam. We had to do an "asian" play for our theme that year. Of course, my class picked Mulan (the disney-version cause why not?). Apparently, the other class already had dibs, so still settling for Disney, we went for Aladdin. Ironically, most of the Chinese looking people were in my class, including me and the people more suited for Aladdin were in the other class. But the other class wouldn't let us switch. So we had to do Aladdin. I really wanted the role of Jasmine because of certain family things that caused them to ridicule me but that's another story. I knew being the palest in class, I had a very slim chance of getting the role until they announced that we had to sing "A Whole New World". I knew that I memorized the song and the timings of the song by heart. I practiced for 3 hours. My natural style at that time was a powerful belt (loud and sounds like shouting) . It wasn't professional sounding but I hit the notes accurately. The day of the auditions, the people auditioning were me, Claire, Danelle,  I think Kate (it's been a while so I don't completely remember) and other girls who auditioned for fun. I did my audition and I even asked the people choosing if they wanted it my style (aka my normal belt-ish style) or like the original track. They said that I should do it my style. When I sang, I felt weird cause we did the audition outside the classroom. I could hear my voice bouncing off the walls. After my audition, I went back inside the classroom and waited.

When the teacher and student directors got back, they chose Danelle as Jasmine. I was holding back anger and tears when I approached one of the directors to ask what I did wrong. They said that that Danelle sang the song closer to the original. WHAT?!?! I asked them what were they looking for. It was weird cause that director was one of Danelle's closest friends and the people who were judging were actually the ones who pushed Danelle to audition. During practices, she couldn't even reach the notes and she sounded shaky. So now I'm losing faith on the audition practices of CP. I've gone to over 7 auditions and I've only gotten in 1 badly written role.

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