LISTEN: Carmen Cusack, Jerry Mitchell & Kathryn Allison Share Audition Stories On WHY I'LL NEVER MAKE IT Podcast

The annual Audition Stories episode is back as Why I'll Never Make It host Patrick Oliver Jones (First Wives Club) has former guests share their own experiences in the audition room and on self-tapes...the good, the bad, and the hysterical.

Listen below!

Dancer and actor Barton Cowperthwaite (Fosse/Verdon) was on tour with An American in Paris and recounts his audition process to book the Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things. Actress and performance artist Misty Rosas talks about a career-changing audition that turned out to be for the Star Wars epic series The Mandalorian.

Before they were award-winning directors and choreographers, Al Blackstone (So You Think You Can Dance) and Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots) share their audition experiences as dancers. Blackstone details a most unfortunate one for the Sweet Charity national tour, while Mitchell recalls his time in Los Angeles with the Academy Awards.

Tony Nominee Carmen Cusack (Bright Star), who was most recently in the short-lived production of Flying Over Sunset, shares her audition for another show at Lincoln Center, South Pacific. Emmy-winning Michael Learned (The Waltons) recalls a most unusual audition for the director of the Broadway play The Sisters Rosenswieg, well before the advent of Zoom or self-tape auditions.

Broadway's Kathryn Allison (Company, Aladdin) brings a a few stories to this episode, highlighting some of the surprises she's found in the audition room, like meeting Sara Bareilles and her first in-person audition after the Covid shutdown. But not every audition is for a show. As high schoolers across the country know, there are also those nerve-racking experiences getting into college theater programs. Actress and movement coach Briana Packen shares how sometimes others want to limit our goals and ambitions when it comes to auditioning.

Listen to these audition stories and more on Why I'll Never Make It, available on all podcast platforms.

WHY I'LL NEVER MAKE IT is one of Feedspot's Top 25 Theater Podcasts and received a 2022 Communicator Award of Distinction. This performing arts podcast is hosted by Off-Broadway actor, singer, and producer Patrick Oliver Jones. WINMI Podcast features fellow creatives sharing the realities of a career in the performing arts, all while challenging the notion of what it really means to "make it" in this business. Other past guests include Bianca Marroquín (Chicago), Jelani Alladin (Frozen), and Caitlin Kinnunen (The Prom).