The crowd was thick with hopeful munchkins, good witches and even some flying monkeys as The GREAT Theatre took their open audition series for The WIZ on the road to Crossroads Center. Executive Artistic Director Dennis Whipple welcomed the crowd of would-be Emerald City denizens including yours truly.

A good 30 kind folks made the courageous step onto the stage including lots of kids. I was there to help promote the event, but as usual, got swept away in the fun. I ended up auditioning myself-

To audition, you had to sing one of the prepared songs, which they provided the sheet music for, or you could just belt out Happy Birthday or Amazing Grace if that's all you knew. I wasn't going to attempt 'Ease On Down the Road', even though I just happen to remember most of the words, due to the fact that I owned the soundtrack from the movie and played it frequently on my trusty 8-Track.

I decided to belt out 'Hurts So Good' by Mellencamp for a song and then proceeded to try out for three roles at once: A Munchkin (obviously the World's Largest Munchkin, suffering from a Thyroid condition), The WIZ, (since I really liked the lines they provided and I did a total improv-rework of the lines), and finally I gave a run at my flying monkey routine (which got a round of applause as well as a few screams from small school girls afraid of the 'BIG HAIRY APE').

I wish I could tell you I had video of it, but at the crucial moments, my camera's memory card ran out of space. NO LIE! However, earlier in the evening, I managed to snap some photos and shoot some video-

The show opens in October and you can get tickets here.

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