Learning to face the music

It's one audition after another for aspiring student actress

WORCESTER - It's taken Stephanie Umoh five months to make it back to Karon Shea's modeling agency here, and now she's a few minutes late.

"Where have you been?" Shea says, all but tapping her toe.

"I know, I know," says Umoh. "I've just been, my life is . . ."

She's stammering and embarrassed. To Shea, Umoh is just another pretty face, not a promising and pressured musical theater major who graduates from Boston Conservatory in the spring.

"When did we last see you?" Shea asks.

"July," Umoh says, cringing.

"Today is Nov. 14. So shame on you."

Point taken. But what could Umoh do? Her schedule's been a little tight lately, what with full-time classes, rehearsals, a starring role in a professional musical, a recital to prepare for, an audition for a conservatory musical, occasional gigs in a South End lounge, and a work-study job in a traveling cabaret. Plus, she was sick for a week with a strep infection. And she doesn't have a car to drive to Worcester: It took weeks to work up the nerve to ask her friend Corbitt Williams if she could borrow his. Again.

But Umoh needs the money (she has $130,000 in student loans) and she needs the exposure. It's just one more dose of humility in a year of ball-dropping and pride-swallowing, in preparation for what she hopes will lead to a role on Broadway some day.

While the conservatory drills its students on the real-world challenges they'll face, school is inevitably a bubble. Being stared down by a professional agent like Shea - not to mention the casting experts who place young talent in shows and movies - will over this year become a bigger part of Umoh's life.

It's something she's started getting used to.

Umoh and her mother scrounged up the $700 for professional photos to show Shea, who will circulate them to clients looking for models and actors for print and commercial jobs. The agent seems impressed.

MORE ON STEPHANIE UMOH To read the entire series and watch video of her, go to boston.com /ae/theater_arts.

"There's nothing wrong with you, that's for sure," she says, warming, as she scrolls through hundreds of images of Umoh, a biracial 21-year-old with a thick mane of corkscrew curls and a smile so natural and appealing that even the toll taker on the Massachusetts Turnpike remarked on it that day. The poses range from sophisticated and elegant in a black cocktail dress to youthful and wholesome on roller blades.

"You're very, very good. Your face is so open. Nice long neck. Nice smile. Ethnic, which is beautiful. Gorgeous hair," Shea says.

Shea clicks on a series of photos of Umoh dressed in jeans and a tank top. "Are you cute," she says. "You look 18 here."

She records Umoh's height (5 feet 7 inches), shoe size (8 1/2), and dress size (6 to 8). Then she pulls out a tape measure. The hips are bad news.

"This is where you carry your weight," she warns Umoh. "With the holidays coming you can gain. So watch out."

"I do need to lose weight. I know, I know. Before Showcase," Umoh concedes, referring to Senior Showcase, the high-stakes springtime show at the conservatory performed by seniors for - yes - agents and casting directors.

Shea's stern parting message: Umoh has to keep an eye on her weight. She must let Shea know if she gains or loses. She needs to prepare a "tote bag" with all her modeling necessities (camisole, pantyhose, nice white blouse, good black jacket, plain black pumps, concealer, translucent powder, pearls, faux diamonds.)

"You have to have staying power," Shea tells her, firmly. "Because this is not going to be easy."

A world of worries

In the back of Umoh's mind is another pending audition, this one a lot more personal.

During Christmas break her Nigerian-born father is taking Umoh to Nigeria to meet her relatives for the first time. Her father, who hoped she would become a doctor, has had a hard enough time with her career choice. What will his family think? "What's my father going to say - this is my daughter the musical theater student?" she says with sarcasm in her voice. "Whoo-hoo!"

That kind of worry fades into the background as she stands before instructor Bill Casey for her weekly vocal repertoire lesson. Having been cast in area shows, Umoh has more experience with auditions than many of her classmates. But as Casey reminds her during one lesson, "There are 80 hundred million singers out there. . . . If there are three girls in a room they'll all be gorgeous, they all can kick their face, and they all can sing high 'Z.' "

Casey and Umoh are preparing songs for her "rep book." The goal is to memorize and perfect what Casey calls a "treasure trove" of some 35 songs in a variety of vocal styles that she can use when she auditions or performs. In auditions, "they may want to see something sultry," he tells her. "They may say, 'We need to see something angry. Or something ditzy and cute.' "

He's brought in a stack of new music for Umoh to learn, including "These Are All Mine," a little-known song by Jimmy Webb. "One of our goals is to sing obscure songs that are instantly recognizable so [you'll] be the only one in the room singing that song. This one falls into that camp," he says, playing the opening bars. "Isn't this gorgeous! It's absolutely rapturous."

Casey is a fast-talking powerhouse, lunging over the piano keys as he plays it for her. Umoh, by contrast, is pale and shivering with a strep infection and a fever which will spike the next day to 103 degrees.

She's wearing a scarf around her neck and a sweater over a sweatshirt. Casey is sympathetic ("poor baby!") but there's work to do. "Part of the biz," he tells her as he turns to the piano, "is you just have to do it."

He tells her not to belt it out, "just take it easy and sing it as not-streppy as possible." But she still must pay attention to little details. He reminds her that her Texas accent is creeping in ("you sing a lot of Southern-fried vowels") and she's slipped on the words to one song.

And then there's the issue of rhythm, which he says continues to be a concern for Umoh, as it is for many students. "There is no one perfect girl for a part," he tells her. "Get the rhythm exactly right, so that won't be one thing they can dismiss you on."

Looks can be achieving

Song choice? Rhythm? Hips? There are so many reasons to be rejected, even for an obvious talent like Umoh. And there will be no shortage of harsh judgments to come, as she and fellow students discover when a professional agent is brought to the conservatory to size them up.

"Establish equal status with the person auditioning you," musical-theater instructor Fran Charnas advises Umoh's class. "It doesn't mean that they are better than you."

Craig Gartner, a Los Angeles talent agent, graduated in 1997 from Boston Conservatory. Like Umoh he was a musical theater major. And he's hear to listen to this year's crop.

"He was very blunt," Umoh says afterward. Gartner stopped her immediately and told her he didn't like the song she had picked, though he seemed happier with an alternate. "He said, 'I could listen to you sing the phone book,' " she reports.

In a phone interview Gartner offered an assessment of the seniors that was even more brutal. "I wasn't crazy about this class," he says. And, like the modeling agent who wants Umoh to watch her weight, he points out that looks do matter. Plenty.

"They'll be up against people who are in top shape - physically and vocally," he says. Yet some of the girls were "chubby." And some boys "effeminate."

Most noticeably, there was a shortage of "traditional leading men and leading women," Gartner says. "You still have to be pretty, as shallow and superficial as that sounds. Look, it's show business."

Charnas, for her part, shrugs off his argument. "He's California," she says. "Looks are everything in California."

But by Gartner's standards, Umoh's got the goods. Not just a voice and looks. "There is something about her that even when she gets up and presents herself, she is confident without being cocky, assured without being arrogant," he says.

Plus, she has something else that won't hurt. "I think her ethnicity will help her," Gartner says. "In this day and age, thankfully, Broadway is a really color-blind place to work. There is not a casting director out there who doesn't make it their job to have more ethnically diverse casts when they can."