“Five, six, seven, eight,” he bellows as I stand shaking, encased in the red velvet of the curtain that mirrors my flaming complexion. I peer out from between my fingers to watch the horror that unraveled before me. People were kicking and slamming their feet against the scuffed up floor, creating a vibration under my heels. I look down at my own feet as they tell me how clumsy and uncoordinated they are. But I take a shaky deep breath and step out into the spotlight of doom as I recall these past thirty, agonizing minutes…

Dance auditions. Just uttering those two words make me shutter and cringe. When one loves to sing and act, unfortunately one is also obligated to dance. I decide to audition for the high school’s 1920’s musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie. So, I straighten out my rarely used Jazz pants and walk into the audition, my confidence a plummeting plane whose engine lights just flashed a tragic warning.

The accomplished dance instructor stands center stage and directs us to the infamous tap shoes. Tap shoes? My scrambled mind tries to process the information I’ve just received as I walk blindly to an avalanche heap of black. I end up being last in line so I had time to contemplate my shoe size, but when I get to the front only one pair remained. The shoes were not my lucky number seven as I expected, but instead, one shoe was a size six with a broken strap and the other, a massive nine that I thought two of my feet could possibly fit into.

I frantically looked around the pile only to come up empty. I quickly strapped on the misfit tap shoes and clunked awkwardly to the stage to become a lost face among the crowd of over forty hopefuls. The dance instructor began teaching us a difficult and Broadway-worthy tap combination that confused my feet just as much as my brain. I believe my mouth just remained a gaping black hole as I tried, unsuccessfully, to follow his tricky steps.

When the actual audition came, I nervously fiddled with the number attached to my chest and stood in front of the unforgiving bright lights. The music began to play and I tried to repeat the moves just taught. I closed my eyes as I tried to catch up with the beat and not miss any crucial steps, but my feet continued to slip over one another while my mind conveniently erased every piece of minor knowledge I knew about this routine.

Once it was finally over I breathed a sigh of relief and walked off the stage as quickly as my constricting size six and my bulky size nine would allow. I was bending over to pull the shoes off just as I heard my name echo off the cushion of the walls surrounding me. I froze and backed up into the heat of the lights yet again.

“Yes?” I let out with a cough. The instructor paused, staring at me, scratching the nape of his neck.

“Now, I want you to try that again, and without the look of constipation and terror on your face. Smile, be happy, make me enjoy it,” he said.

And I swear I could see the red horns grow from his head and a fiery pitch fork replace his dull brown clipboard. So I performed the song, once again, this time with an uncomfortable smile stretched thin across my face. Unfortunately, doing it a second time actually worsened my dancing skills and I left the theater more humiliated then before. I sat at home that evening, rubbing my aching feet, not wanting to discuss the tragedy with my parents.



At the end of the week I heard excited whispers about the cast list that was taped to the back theater door, but I didn’t bother checking, already knowing the negative numbers that must of totaled by the end. Not until a student tapped me on the shoulder and pulled my unwilling arms to the door did I see the most peculiar name halfway through the list; a name that couldn’t possibly belong. It was my name!



I actually passed the audition and ended up with a dancing role in the show! On Opening Night I even considered wearing a size six and a size nine shoe. Just for good luck…