Most of you probably know that I was a participant of the Disney College Program from 2017-2018! 9 whole months of going to Disney World! I was a hostess at The Flying Fish for one semester, and Coral Reef for the second semester.
It was glorious and the worst all at the same time! My room mates were some of the best friends I ever made, they are truly the best thing about that progam!! When I arrived to Florida I had already made a list.
Most everything on that list was either a show or a parade.
-Mickey's Royal Friendship Faire
-Festival of Fantasy Parade
-Voices of Liberty singers in Epcot
-Finding Nemo the Musical
-The Festival of The Lion King
-Frozen Sing a long
-Move it! Shake it! Street dance party
-Beauty and the Beast
-Indiana Jones Show
Just to name a few. My goal was to see the shows as soon as possible. Well at some point I finally made it to Animal Kingdom to watch Finding Nemo the Musical. I had never heard of this before but it was a musical and I was going to see it! So I go into the theatre, and see this blue ocean background with the title in front. Pretty soon you hear Squirt's voice announcing to turn off your cell phones. Then the beautiful introduction started. I didn't know what I was in for!
The show was about 35 minutes long and I think it was one of the most times I had been transported to another world. I was highly engaged, laughing, feeling scared, etc. The music was so catchy! And by the end of the show when all the sea creatures come out and are singing "In the Big Blue World" and bubbles are falling from the sky, I became extremely emotional.
You can here it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcqXqyNEihE&list=RDpcqXqyNEihE&start_radio=1
I was deeply touched. I loved it...LOVED IT! And from that moment in August 2017, through September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, and May...I honestly have NO IDEA how many times I saw it. It's gotta be at least 40 times. I never got sick of it!
When I was at Animal Kingdom, if I didn't specifically go there to see the show, then I would at least try to squeeze it in before I left the park. It always made me leave feeling better.
I grew to really love the songs' "Where's my Dad" "Not my Dad" and "That's my Dad". And I would sing them all the time. My roommate Julia and I (Julia was a skipper on the jungle cruise! How cool is that?!) She loved it as well and we would literally act out the entire 30 minute show in our apartment.
I think that my voice was very similar to the character of Nemo!
So I came home from my program in May, and that fall as I was casually browsing disneyauditions.com like I do pretty regularly, I saw that they had auditions coming up in November!
As soon as I read it my heart swelled up. I started imagining being on the stage, singing In the Big Blue World, and crying. My heart overfilled! I wanted to go so bad!
Immediate next thought in my head: You have to be responsible! You can't spend money on a plane ticket to risk that.
Next immediate action I took: I posted on Facebook asking if anyone had flight hook ups (not really believing anyone would respond) Somebody messaged me and said I could use their buddy pass for Jetblue. Somebody else offered to pay for one of my ways. I ended up paying like $50 to fly from SLC to Orlando. I stayed at my friend's for free. I just paid for uber and food while I was there.
Why did I decide to audition when the chances of making it are SO SMALL!
Because. I knew what kind of life I wanted to live, I dreamed of it long ago. And it wasn't about getting the part in Animal Kingdom. It was that I dreamed I would be the kind of person who would fly around the world to go to auditions.
The journey is the dream.
I auditioned. Surprise I did not get cast, or even called back. Honestly, I don't think they gave much thought about me at all.
But I didn't ignore my heart. Also, I remember what phase I was in and what my bank account was-this is ONE time when people helped me pay, if they had not I was so close to buying the ticket by myself anyway. So don't use my story as an excuse for you not going for it. I would have bought it myself.
I flew to California to audition for Disney Live and paid for my plane ticket AND AirBnB with nobody donating to me. So I've done it before. And I will continue to do it if my heart tells me to. It's hard to take action if you don't have a vision. You deserve to have fun on this life!
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