At Thursday’s open auditions for a chance to entertain commuters outside Metro stations in Washington, a common question from the judges to performers was, “Could you do this for two hours straight?”
WASHINGTON, May 11 — Some came bearing musical instruments of all kinds, from guitars and banjos, to electric keyboards and trumpets, to traditional African drums and gourd rattles.
Each performer had no more than five minutes to impress the judges, whose criteria included expression and form, stage presence and past experience.
Others tried to dazzle with magic tricks, deep baritones, impassioned verses or beatbox sounds.
But for most of those vying to be selected as an entertainer outside the city’s well-trafficked subway stations, the open auditions that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority held Thursday were a chance to show some heart.
“I do this because I love it,” said 21-year-old Chris Ratto, an avid cellist, as he warmed up with several bars from one of Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello before his audition. “I may be able to reach out to people who otherwise wouldn’t be hearing this on a day-to-day basis.”
For the twentysomething bandmates and the older professional performers alike, the opportunity to showcase their skills in a town populated with frenzied rush-hour Metro commuters was a golden ticket to musical exposure — and possibly fame.
“You’ve got places like New York, California, and you have people performing there,” said Adrienne Vyfhuis, 35. “Here we have the same opportunities, but no one has thought of this before.
“When you’re just hustling home, you can listen and relax a bit. It’s a nice diversion,” Ms. Vyfhuis said after her rendition of Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love for You” before a rapt panel of judges, who included a music instructor at the private Sidwell Friends School and the manager of Busboys and Poets, a popular local restaurant and lounge for striving artists.
“Could you do this for two hours straight?” the judges often asked the participants.
Each performer had no more than five minutes to impress the judges, whose criteria included expression and form, stage presence and past experience. But an hour into the auditions, it was clear the judges had strict standards: More than 30 acts had already been whisked out the door.
As soon as some performers took the stage, their moment came and went, although Leonard Alexander of southeast Washington continued to blare away on his trumpet long after the judges expressed a polite, but firm, “Thank you.”
“Is it over?” Mr. Alexander asked as he suddenly looked up, before immediately jumping into the first few notes of taps.
“I bombed, man. I didn’t have the chance to play the whole thing,” he said later of his audition. “He stopped me, so I decided to play taps.”
During Thursday’s three-hour audition — another full day of tryouts will be held Saturday — acts ranged from solo spoken-word artists to gospel/soul a cappella groups to traditional Bolivian Andean music and African dance, a testament to the city’s diversity. The judges expect to choose up to 50 lucky winners.
“It’s a diverse talent pool. With any talent competition, you see the good, you see the bad, you see the whole gamut,” said Jonathan G. Willen, one of the judges, whose arts management firm, Jonathan G. Willen & Associates, based in the city, represents regional artists and has helped produce some stage works at the Kennedy Center.
An average of 700,000 commuters in the greater Washington area ride the Metro to and from work each weekday. Visitors bump that number up considerably on weekends and during the tourist seasons, making the system the second-busiest in the country after New York City’s, which also features performers chosen by audition.
In Washington, performers will need to keep theirday jobs — panhandling will not be allowed.
But the musicians will be paid $200 for each two-hour performance. The Arts in Transit performances will begin in early June and last through October, before returning for the winter holiday season. The number and times for performances have not been set, nor have the stations been chosen that will feature the artists. But there will be twice-daily appearances, in the late morning and then again in the early evening, close to the morning and afternoon commutes, at the selected stations.
“It brings something back to the D.C. music scene. D.C. needs something like this,” said Justin Trawick, 25, of Arlington, Va., who plays in a band whose music he described as urban folk rock.
Malik Wilson, 29, is realistic about the nature of street performance, when even the music of internationally acclaimed artists like Joshua Bell, the Grammy Award-winning violinist, can go ignored by the busy throngs of rush-hour commuters, as a recent experiment by The Washington Post Magazine showed.
And so when Mr. Wilson recited some of his original poetry before the judges, it was titled “Green/Yellow Line,” words he penned while riding that particular Metro line, part of which cuts through Washington’s historic jazz district.
“I expect sort of to be ignored and for people to go about their way,” Mr. Wilson said, should he be selected as one of the dozens of performers.
“But the hope is that a word, a phrase, lodges in someone’s mind and stays there. And that sort of is a seductive, interesting idea.”
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