I decided I wanted to keep trying, so he then arranged for an audition with a Mr. Roger Wagner, and his Master Chorale (oratorios, cantatas at UCLA and performances with the Los Angeles symphony Orchestra).
I grew up singing oratorios, (from which comes the descant style singing--that of a soprano singing soaring refrains over and above a chorus--called "obligato work") also I loved this music of Brahms' B Minor Mass, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, etc. It was here I met Mr. William Felber, who became my agent. He arranged for an audition for me with the Metropolitan Opera National Company. I was one of two women who won those auditions in Los Angeles! At age 18!
This meant I had to leave my musical comedy work in the "Theater in the Round," and leave Steve's and my comedy act at the Birdcage Theater (Knott's Berry Farm) for one year on the road. However, The Birdcage was wonderful to us, as we could come and go as we pursued our careers, and know we always had a job waiting to come home to.
I returned after a year to the Birdcage and its old fashioned melodramas, where Steve and I did our act during what's called an "olio"...like in vaudeville, in between our playing either the hero/heroine or the comic parts. All of us in that theater knew everyone's part, and rotated daily. One day a week the girls had to run the box-office, selling tickets then run the spotlight, after seating customers, and the boys (Steve) had to become "barkers"--selling or attempting to grab customers, lure them inside by screaming "It's showtime at the Birdcage Theater! Step right up, Ladies and Gentlemen"....too funny. Steve and I also performed our act in local "coffee houses" --moonlighting, if you will.
The Jimmy Joyce Singers
I went off for a couple of years with a group called the "Sandpipers", who had a hit called "Guantanamera." I became so sick of just being "ON THE ROAD" and traveling that I VOWED NEVER TO TRAVEL AGAIN! I sought studio work, and as soon as I auditioned for JIMMY JOYCE, there miraculously appeared an opening in his group THREE WEEKS after my audition! He had NOT had an opening for over six years! There were six of us...The Jimmy Joyce Singers, who appeared on television shows such as the Dean Jones show (What's it ALL ABOUT WORLD), Red Skelton Show weekly at CBS, Tim Conway's Show at CBS, Dean Martin, at NBC, Don Knotts, Bobby Darin's last eight shows, "The Hollywood Palace," and too many recording sessions on albums for artists to recall or list here.
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