Thommie Retter Dance Workshop

I promptly squelched that line of thought, as it’s not at all conducive to effective stage-mom parenting, and signed up J. (He’s my 9-year-old who auditioned for Matilda last time around, without any specific prep.) In the waiting room outside that workshop and at the audition, moms compared notes about musical theatre programs, performing arts camps ($5,000 for 3 weeks), dance studios, vocal and dance coaches (over $100 an hour; one we know charges $250). Getting a leg-up in the biz can cost an arm and a leg! Many kids tune their belting voices with Trapper Felides of Oxygen’s “The Next Big Thing.” (Hey, Trapper, check your text messages. I’m trying to book a session. I’m really sorry I didn’t know who you were when we met. I have four little kids, an overgrown teenager for a husband, a freelance writing job, and this time-consuming blogging gig. My reality TV viewing time is zilch, but I’m working on it. You rock.) Moms have to be totally on top of it. Stars are molded, not born.

I can say two things about the workshop my son took with dance phenomenon Thommie Retter (former Mr. Braithwaite from Billy Elliot the Musical, and therefore God as far as J is concerned): 1. J had so much fun he was giddy the entire afternoon and evening. 2. He came out of the Matilda dance audition beaming. Okie dokie, money well spent (and it wasn’t even pricey).

I also kinda doubt the 8U Little League coaches can do anything this impressive: Watch the Video of Thommie tapping (at the bottom of the page on the left in the link).

Aside from Thommie, here is the caliber of talent you may stumble upon at one of his workshops… Kiril Kulish (one of the original Billy’s):

As for Matilda, I couldn’t help but put my ear against the door while J sang…two songs. I resisted clapping. Would they really ask for a second song (“Electricity” from Billy Elliot) after an 8-hr day of auditioning if they weren’t a teeny bit interested? That is just the kind of thinking that can undermine my post-audition advice: Walk out and forget about it.

The casting director did tell me J (whom she’d seen at Alvin Ailey last November) was on the top of the list to play Billy Elliot in the Broadway tour, which, sadly, is closing before he’ll get his chance. Bad luck. Coaching may be key these days, but no one can deny that Lady Luck still plays a starring role.

When I first got an agent in New York, I slept on the owner’s sofabed at his apartment. This was the accommodations the agency provided for me. I’d also slept on my booker’s sofabed in Milan, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. When the agency owner hit on me one night, it wasn’t a huge surprise either. I shut him down and promptly moved. I was 24. The other model sleeping on the sofabed was 14. Unaccompanied in New York. Sleeping on her agent’s sofabed.

Parents, girls, be smart. The Model Alliance is fighting hard to raise awareness and to ramp up regulations that will protect models who are minors, but for now, the modeling world is still like the Wild West. A number of articles and posts in my Facebook newsfeed lately illustrate why teenage girls who are modeling need someone looking out for them, and it’s probably not going to be their agent or clients. The controversy regarding accusations against photographer Terry Richardson of sexual harassment of models gives you an idea of a worst-case scenario on set. Former child star model/actress Milla Jovovich got into the biz at 11, but said her mom was with her every step of the way. Wise woman. Even scarier are the dangers of the Internet and sites like Model Mayhem which render aspiring models vulnerable.

3 Missing Aspiring Models Linked to Model Mayhem

Here’s my advice for models under 18…

5 Places a Mom Should Go With Her Teenage Model

1. Any bookings or test shoots with photographers you don’t know and trust 100%.

2. Any important meetings with your agent (especially if held after dark, with alcohol involved!)

3. New York, Milan, Paris—really any big and/or foreign city where a model is sent to work/build her book

4. Any modeling trips where you will be traveling and staying overnight

5. Any model parties/places where modelizers (especially rich, older men) are lurking and eager to prey on your daughter!

Please note: Your job in chaperoning your young models is to keep them safe, not to meddle. Stay out of the photographer’s/client’s/stylists’ way, don’t gab on set and distract them, or worse give input on how you think they should shoot your daughter/style her hair/line her lips. However, when it comes to removing a lecherous man’s hand from your 16-year-old’s thigh, by all means go ballistic.

Don’t forget to enter the perfectly safe Modeling Mentor Model Search. If you are under 18, please have a parent or guardian submit your photos!

I contemplated whether we should go to the open call and spend Saturday morning in a room full of ambitious kids who can sing like birds—or like Adele or Bruno Mars in this case. The casting directors were looking for kids with “excellent pop voices.” J does a pretty awesome rendition of “Grenade” and we had to be in New York for his dance classes at Alvin Ailey anyway, so off we went…a little late (ok, friends, stop smiling knowingly). My plan had been to catch the 8:07 so we could get to Telsey + Company on West 43rd by 9:45 to sign in early (casting started at 10). But at midnight the 8:32 started sounding a lot better. So we got to the casting at 10 and slapped the white sticky label on J’s shirt that read: #127.

The waiting room soon was packed with 200 eager kids and their parents. Ugh, would we even make it to Alvin Ailey by 1:30? BUT then the audition began and a chirpy brunette with a megaphone voice started calling 10 kids at a time to line up outside each of 3 rooms. Efficient wranglers stood at each door, sending in the young aspiring stars and starlets (way more of the latter) to sing 16 bars of a pop song, a cappella. Before 11 AM, they reached #100 and J started warming up outside the bathroom, where a few mini Katy Perrys and Justin Biebers were doing the same. The kid doesn’t really get nervous so I have to for him. “Don’t you have to go to the bathroom?” I ask him. “No, mom.” “You really should pee. You might get nervous right before and have to go.” “No, mom, I’m fine.” I go to the bathroom instead.

J chats with a teenage Wendy wannabe in line in front of him. 121 goes. Then 122, 123, 124. I need to pee again. I hold it until 127 comes out, and as the woman at the door staples a ticket to his headshot, he asks, “Does everyone get one of those?” NO, they don’t! J has been asked to stay and sing again! We are ushered into a room where about 20 beaming hopefuls are waiting for their next round. Most of these kids seem like veterans. They are talking about their recent auditions, they are flipping through their “books” (containing sheet music for their repetoire of songs). A boy next to us, about 11, sitting alone, starts chatting with two girls and their moms. “I’m from Massachusetts,” he says. “I got a ride down with a friend. She’s out there.” He pointed to the door, now closed to the waiting room where the rejects are filtering out of the casting agency. “I feel really bad that she didn’t get called back, and they gave me a ride here.” He really looks like his heart might break for his friend. The moms reassure him. That’s showbiz. (And a higher percentage of boys were asked to stay, considering all those Lost Boy parts.)

“He’s adorable,” says a mom, leaning over to me and gesturing toward J, who has his head buried in some dark book. Again, like at the “Matilda” audition, no “Dance Moms” in sight.

Yeah, adorable is nice (and not the side a mom sees most of the time!). But mostly I’m proud he made the cut. I manage his expectations by letting him know it’s a long shot to get beyond this audition (poor kid, saddled with a realist for a mom).

Now it’s back to Ballet Etudes “Nutcracker” rehearsals (tickets are on sale now at the Westport Country Playhouse). He’s Fritz this year. He won’t get to fly (although some of the dancers seem to!) but he does get to sword fight. It’s almost as good as Peter Pan.

Ballet Etudes “The Nutcracker” at Westport Playhouse,  Photo by Beth Shepherd Peters

Aspiring models, stay tuned for some tips coming from my Model Advisory Board on Thursday.

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My first piece of advice: read everything on my website that pertains to modeling:

1. My blog posts about modeling, especially the kid modeling ones. (Start with the one in that link and then read the “Related Posts” at the bottom.)

2. All the articles on modeling, which are in the “Modeling” section within “Articles,” especially the “Dear Jill” articles at the bottom.

Here is one of those “Dear Jill” Q&A’s, which will help you determine whether your kid is cut out for modeling.

Dear Jill,

I want to get my six-year-old daughter into modeling. What’s your advice?

—Catwalk Mom, Chicago, IL

Dear Catwalk Mom,

Does your child want to model? I know that when I was six, I wanted to be outside collecting tadpoles. Of course these days kids know their supermodels as well as their princesses and dream of being just like Gisele or Heidi. Your daughter may be begging you to let her model. If not, you shouldn’t force her. If so, many factors—both physical and psychological—deserve serious consideration.

Is your daughter model caliber? Don’t answer this yourself (I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “a face only a mother could love”). And leave your daughter out of this superficial, highly critical process. Just quietly send in some natural snapshots—face and full-length—to some reputable agencies in your area.

If you get a negative response, drop it, at least for a couple years. If you get a positive response, explain what it’s all about to your daughter and make sure you keep it on the level of a fun hobby, not the life-or-death pursuit of all your own unfulfilled dreams projected onto your mini diva.

The real test will be the first booking, when your daughter will reveal whether she has all the essential qualities that separate child models from pretty but unposable girls and boys: patience, independence, animated expressions, and the ability to improvise and pose naturally with perfect strangers.

Just keep in mind the potentially worst aspect of a child model: the parents! I’ve seen one too many pushy, competitive, and ugly (inside and out) parents instilling shallow values in their tyrannical tots. I once worked with a beautiful five-year-old whose 5’5″ troll of a father had her future all mapped out for her. I asked him if she was building a nice college fund. He replied, “Oh, she probably won’t even need college.”

He obviously was overlooking the fact that his daughter—like many child models—was short for her age (this allows a more mature child to model fashions meant for a younger age group). Once many child models start to grow up (but not very up), they will find themselves pitted against their bean-sprouting teenage peers who reach 5’10″ and grab all the bookings. So even if your daughter launches into a stellar career at a young age, make sure you are realistic about the long-term viability of modeling. And never prioritize posing over a good education (but by all means use earnings from the former to finance the latter!).

Good luck!

—Jill

Send your “Dear Jill” questions to: dearjill@modelingmentor.com

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Casting Agent Nora Brennan

1. If it actually is you who wants to be there more than your kid, then expect A LOT of whining.

2. Arrive early to reduce the wait time. Sign in for “Matilda” was at 9 AM; we arrived at 9, not a minute before, because breakfast always overshadows all other priorities in my life. This put J at #23—not bad, but more than half the people arrived earlier than sign-in time.

3. Bring a book, Ipad, something to entertain yourself and cherubic child. The audition was slated to start at 10, but the first group of dancers (20 kids) didn’t go in until 10:30. The rest of us were told we could leave but had to be back by noon.

4. Expect bribery. J thought he deserved a cultural excursion to Toys-R-Us in return for working so hard at the audition (never mind that all he had done so far was read a book). Luckily I managed to keep the damage to one DVD for the family (which my kids managed to lose before they even watched it; does this happen in anyone else’s household?).

5. Remember to feed your child. J had a bag of popcorn but somehow I forgot about lunch, which might be useful before a two-hour dance audition. Yes, TWO hours!

6. Don’t expect to see any of the audition. All I heard was the stomping and shouting from what sounded like the “Revolting Children” number. J came out at 2:30 exhilarated and exclaimed, “That was fun!” But that’s all I got. (Of course that said A LOT. Insert sigh of relief from mother who prefers not to be a pushy stagemom.)

Matilda, the Musical

7. For a singing audition in which children need to bring sheet music, which is most of the time, they should have a “book.” This is a 3-ring binder with pages of music inside in plastic sleeves, which makes it easier for the pianist. We were part of the newbie crowd with loose sheets of music. Oops.

8. Expect some intimidating kids like the ones who broke into song, unabashedly rehearsing in the waiting room, and a toddler-size Michael Jackson belting out “ABC, 123″ in the ladies room. Likewise, several boys demonstrated rubber-band-like flexibility warming up for the dance portion. But by and large, the kids did what most kids do everywhere: played on their parents’ IPhones.

9. Sorry, no “Dance Moms” anecdotes. The parents chatted politely. We exchanged info about an upcoming open call for “Peter Pan.” We discussed community theatre and our artsy boys. Nobody boasted. I learned that some families traveled in from as far as Florida. The casting directors thoughtfully let those who had to catch flights jump the line.

10. Don’t expect to find out much about what the casting directors are looking for beyond a couple lines in the audition details. I learned more about what casting agent Nora Brennan wanted in this article I stumbled upon in the Huffington Post: “Nora Brennan’s Precise Art of Casting Children.” She’s not looking for a bunch of cute kids. She wants distinct faces and body types. That’s one thing I noticed looking around at the crowd of Broadway hopefuls. They had memorable faces, but they were characters more than cuties. In a former post, someone commented about being careful about the importance of looks in the acting and dance world. Maybe in Hollywood. I haven’t seen that at all here. The most talented kids are cast in these shows; the cutest, well he’s just plugging along getting experience at auditions and waiting for his big break.

Billy Elliot

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Woohoo, I’m officially a “Stylemama”! Fortunately the people over at rebelmom.com do not have spies catching me working in my PJs (ratty, unstylish ones) at my kitchen table right now. They think I dress like this all of the time:

“Stylemama” Jill Johnson on Rebelmom.com

See how I’m leaning on that wall? Hmm, is that a pose or a way of taking the pressure off feet that are used to ballet flats and sneakers? I do actually admit in the interview that if I’m wearing heels, I have ballet flats in my bag. Maybe I don’t come completely clean about how often flip-flops round out my beach chic look. OK, maybe “chic” is a stretch. I better be careful. They might slap up another Stylemama in my place.

The bottom line, my fellow Stylemama wannabes out there, as long as you can clean up nice when you need to and find an outfit that’s free of spit-up and dried Cheerios, you’re doing alright

For tips on juggling work and motherhood plus thoughts on the most age-inappropriate clothing item I own, read the Rebelmom Interview.

Thanks again to my fashionista friends and entrepreneurs, Maria Casabianca at Soma Boutique and Jennifer Lau at Genevievelau.com;  photographer Mindy Veissid; and Joe Fresh for the Ralph Pucci job that brought me into the city at the right time for this shoot.

Next up: J’s Broadway audition for Matilda. Was it like an episode of Dance Moms?…

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Judy Garland in “Wizard of Oz”

Clearly Mrs. Gumm took things way too far, but few stars would have made it without a push. The key is to find a way to gently push in the direction where a kid shows potential, not shove them so hard they get whiplash (and lasting emotional scars/drug addictions). As my nine-year-old is pretty serious about dancing (and acting), I’ve asked any serious dancer I encounter about how much is too much. Almost all say they wanted to quit at some point when they were kids, but their parents pushed them, they stuck with it, and they’re glad they did. I guess the question is when does push come to shove? It takes work to become great at anything and kids tend to be lazy. Although Amy Chua took pushing (and shoving) to the extreme, I think her book Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom made some excellent points about coddled, unmotivated American children.

For now, pushing and shoving don’t work into the toddler modeling equation. The wee ones have to love it or they won’t last past the first booking. On these little breaks from real life, there’s more hand-holding between T and me than there would be in our chaotic house of six. I don’t offer her speed but perhaps break a few nutrition rules when packing the snacks. I carefully assess her response when I say, “We’re going to New Jersey for pictures.” So far, this statement still yields a huge grin and a question of what toys she’ll get to play with this time. The big motivation for me, stagemom/chauffeur, is not the money (read about that here) or the tear sheets (these shots were for packaging; we’ll have to buy the toys to get the tear sheets!) or the blog material. I’m pushing open doors. Print modeling leads to commercials, which lead to acting opportunities. I was obsessed with acting as a kid, and I see that gene in two of my kids. What I would have given for the chance to audition in New York. J will be auditioning for Sesame Street this week and Matilda on Broadway this weekend. Being a realist, I suspect these experiences will be great opportunities for learning to deal with rejection. That is a lesson that is blatantly absent in most kids activities these days.

Are stage moms any different from parents who are paying for expensive extra training for their young athletes or intensive tutoring and SAT prep classes to plot a course to the Ivys? Maybe we’re worried about child actors ending up like Lindsay Lohan (see the latest news)? Comment and let us know what you think!

Stay tuned for my Stylemama pic and the skinny on Fashion Week.

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Due to a huge delay at the GW Bridge (add 1 hour to aforementioned drive time), we arrived late—huge no, no. I imagined several mini models waiting, parents glaring at me as we entered the studio. Fortunately T’s shot was a single. And fortunately she made up for her tardiness with a stellar performance having an animated conversation on a toy cell phone with her hair in two cute little buns (modeling perk: new hairstyle ideas). The photographer—relaxed, nice, phew—got the shot so quickly that he added another shot, which involved T singing into a pink microphone. She requested “Call Me Maybe” as her boogie-down song and had a great time jamming with the kid wrangler. I was shuffled away from the set—interfering former-model mom—but I could watch it all on a computer screen. Oh, the joys of the modern age of digital photography. All we saw back in the day were a couple of Polaroids.

Speaking of, when will T see her work? Possibly February on toy packaging, but maybe never as the shots could be for the European market. (That’s more info than a model usually gets, btw.) Barely three, T does not seem too preoccupied with issues of instant gratification. She was thrilled to learn her other shots will be in Toys-R-Us newspaper inserts before Halloween. (I think maybe just the word “Halloween” is what made her beam, but whatever works.)

I took the Tappan Zee Bridge on the way back. WAY better. T napped so she felt like she was home in the blink of an eye, which I hope diffuses any suspicions she has that Mom is nuts to do this.

A precious tidbit of info I learned at the studio made the travel worth it: A kid came the day before, for one shot (so we’re talking $100), from Killington, Vermont! OMG, there are people much crazier than I am. So for those of you who are wondering, Can my kid model if we live three states away from New York? The answer is YES!

How to Be a Model Tip: Some bookings have “brings”—things the client has requested that you bring along. The agency told me to bring a mix of pink, mint green, and lavender leggings and shirts. I found an assortment, none without a stain. The client didn’t use anything I brought, which may have been due to the state of T’s hand-me-down wardrobe, but in my experience is typical. Since I also was kindly informed not to buy anything, I knew the “brings” were just for back-up.

I’m going to add “How to Be a Model” Tips to upcoming blogs (where appropriate).

While not totally appropriate in a kid model blog post, have you seen the shirtless Abercrombie & Fitch male models’ cover of Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe”? If this blog bored you, I promise this hot display of six-packs in the video below will not. Oh, the fond memories conjured by images of the Duomo and hunky guys…

Abercrombie & Fitch Models in Milan

What would it be like to date one of these guys? Read my latest Male Model blog post!

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The journey author Nancy Shulins took me on began here:

“Letting go of a dream is a process, a series of openings and closings of the hand, as you watch the magic dust you’ve been cradling so carefully trickle away in thin streams. It’s a progression, one that cannot be rushed. The key is to practice losing a bit at a time, lest you fall apart when you see it’s all gone.”

Anyone who has battled infertility knows exactly what Shulins is talking about (but few of us could put it into such poignant, perfect words). I remember the magic dust trickling away month after month, IVF after IVF. What I didn’t know back then was that all those thin streams would converge, circle back, and, all in good time, dump a river’s worth of magic into my life. For Nancy Shulins, the magic came in the form of a 1200-pound baby.

Falling for Eli: How I Lost Heart, Then Gained Hope Through the Love of a Singular Horse continues to trek through territory familiar to me, when Nancy enters the first of many Connecticut barns that replace her yearning for a baby nursery:

“I inhale the heady aroma of horses, manure, wood shavings, and hay, with top notes of worn saddle leather, and realize how much I have missed it.”

I was a horse owner from age 8 to 22 (well, ornery-pony owner for the first few years) and then spent most of my 20s out of the saddle and on catwalks. It was just before my first in vitro fertilization that I returned to riding. I needed comforting—the dreamy feeling of cantering, being one with a horse, needing no one and nothing else, if at least for the hour I was at the barn. Nancy Shulins didn’t own a horse as a kid, but she had ridden enough times to have caught the bug, which lay dormant until this crucial time in her life, when she desperately needed to fill a void.

She buys Eli and treats him like her first-born. She’s a patient and over-protective mom. Lots of mommy and me time, 20 pounds of carrots a week—Eli is one lucky boy. Nancy’s devotion and passion for her overgrown toddler lead to hours and hours of careful observation, studying, training, and ultimately a knowledge of all things equine that put this long-time horse lover to shame. I learned something I didn’t know about horses from every chapter. I also developed an increased appreciation for never having to call a vet during the decade+ I owned my  hearty Appaloosa. Was our luck due to good genes or his environment? My $1200 steed never lived cooped up in a stall or wore fancy blankets, even in frigid Rochester winters. He roamed a 5-acre field with a fellow gelding and a mare, and wandered in and out of the barn as he pleased (Board – $75/month!). We went trail riding, played Cops & Robbers in the woods, jumped for fun, went to 4-H horse camp. Eli’s world is not like that and neither is the world of most horses in lower Connecticut (or in Spain, for that matter). I tried ten stables before I found one where I thought the horses got enough turnout. (I’m appalled by Fairfield County’s fancy clubs with giant green mowed fields and horses relegated to dark stalls.) Nancy also grapples with the issues of modern-day “privileged” horse life and the former AP correspondent’s insights into how we treat horses and how they respond are fascinating and instructive. This is a must-read for any equestrian or aspiring equestrian.

Falling for Eli is also for anyone struggling with infertility and looking for hope. Nancy teaches us to think outside the box; it’s inside a box stall (who woulda thought?) that her spirit is nuzzled back to life.

Moms? Yes, this book absolutely belongs in the “Motherhood” category. Nancy teaches us about good parenting—waking in the middle of the night and not holding grudges, being there no matter what and loving unconditionally, being educated and being kind—and she teaches empathy for the women with dashed hopes of motherhood, the women letting go of dreams in thin streams of magic dust.

Really any book or animal lover will find the story of Eli, an endearing fellow, and Nancy, his humble and adoring “mom,”  hard to resist:

“Ego aside, at the end of the day none of my inadequacies at horse keeping detract from the stuff that really matters, the moments that are just Eli’s and mine. They come along every now and then: the day he watches me hug a girlfriend in greeting and jealously insinuates his head in between us; the morning he responds to my momentary tears of frustration by bringing his luminous brown eye so close to my blue one, I feel the sweep of his chestnut lashes as he peers as if into my soul.”

Read more here: FallingforEli.com

Nancy and Eli

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Now, we can get into tabulating the net profits from the Toys-R-Us booking that came along a couple of castings later. (We will set aside the gas, tolls, train tix, ferris wheel diversion, work time lost going to those castings, and just chalk that up as mostly quality 1:1 mom:kid time.)

The ferris wheel in Toys R Us in Times Square. A nice post-casting stop-off.

Kid worked 1 hour, from 2 to 3 PM (exactly in the middle of nap time, even though the form we filled out at the casting asked for nap time and I wrote 1:30 PM. It is totally not surprising that Kid was booked exactly at nap time; what is surprising is that they even asked about nap time at all). Earned $100. Minus agency fee of $20. $80 left. Parking ticket outside Union City, NJ, studio = $35 (I swore the sign said no parking on Thursday, not Tuesday). $45 left. Gas for trip from CT to NJ and back = $20 (maybe more, since chic Minivan still had bulky bike rack on back and shell on top from recent vacation). $25 left. Tolls = Let’s say $0 since they went on the E-ZPass and I don’t ever see an E-ZPass bill, so it’s like taking a bite of someone else’s cookie—it doesn’t count. Work time lost for 5-hr outing, hmm, depends  (why 5 hours for a 1-hour booking, you ask? Hit rush hour on the way back and accident on West Side Highway, which we were on cuz GPS said to go home via Manhattan, which didn’t seem like a great idea, but I love the Big Apple, so I figured, What the heck, Midtown Tunnel here we come! [Toll for Midtown Tunnel was not an issue, considering aforementioned reasoning about E-ZPass costs]). On a really productive day, work time could equal $500, but on a day like this when I check e-mail, FB, Twitter all morning, eat lunch and read NY Times Book Review, and then blog to avoid doing the assignment I will be paid for, we can figure $20 for the one paragraph of actual work I will complete. So bottom line, Toys R Us booking net = ~$0.

Oh well, T had a blast driving the Jeep in her shot (SHE was the driver, not her morose little date. You go, girl). The kid wrangler (the person who makes morose mini models smile cheek to cheek) was one of the most talented I’ve ever seen.

Nothing to go into the giveback.org fund this time, but I’ll read the parking signs more carefully next time.

The juicy stuff from “About Face: Supermodels Then and Now” later this week: partying, drugs, sexual harassment, plastic surgery…

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