Working as a composer and sometimes stage director in the theater all these years has given me the opportunity (or perhaps plight) to witness nearly 20,000 auditions. Simon Cowell has nothing on me.  :o)

Every spring, in fact, I teach the auditioning course at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater here in NYC, our country’s foremost professional acting school started by the late, great Sanford Meisner. I’ve done this for over 20 years now and do a 3 hour lecture followed by 4 days of auditions and critiques for the second year students.

At the end of the whole experience I always try to end on a high note by telling the story of the best audition, out of the nearly 20,000, that I ever saw.

This distinction belongs to Broadway star, Betty Buckley. Betty is perhaps best known around the country for the 1977-81 TV dramedy Eight is Enough, but in New York she is treasured as one of our great leading ladies on the Broadway stage over the last 30 years starring in, among others, Pippin, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Sunset Boulevard, Triumph of Love and Cats, where she originated the role of Grizabella, singing the song “Memory” to perfection and winning the Tony Award.

I was fortunate enough to see her Broadway debut in 1969 in the terrific musical 1776 where she played Martha Jefferson. I was a fan from just that experience alone.

Before she became a star, before Eight Is Enough and Cats, she came in and auditioned for our 1978 Broadway musical, King of Hearts. There I sat, in a dingy little audition room over in Tin Pan Alley between playwright, Steve Tesich who later won the Oscar for his screenplay of Breaking Away, and Jacob Brackman, lyricist for Carly Simon – both guys bookwriter and lyricist for King of Hearts.

Betty came in and sang her first song. Even then, Betty had the three necessary ingredients – great natural beauty, a rich and startling ability to reach down into a song and just dramatically squeeze all the juice out of it, and a stunning instrument of precision and power – her voice.

As she sang that first song, I don’t remember what the song was, but I do remember that I got tears in my eyes as she broke my heart with the song.

Back then you usually allowed someone of her stature to sing one song all the way through. If you thought she might be right, you would sometimes ask for another, specifying up-tempo or ballad. She had knocked us out with the first one, we knew she was perfect for the role of Madam Madeleine in our show, though perhaps a little young.

We asked her for a second song. She sang an up-tempo that just blew the roof off that ol’ rehearsal hall. She was funny, she was crazy, she was bigger than the room and the song and all of us – she was a star before she became a star. Once again I got tears in my eyes and by the end of the song, thought I hadn’t sung a note, I was out of breath.

We applauded. This is something that is never done at an audition. These are work sessions between professionals, but Betty reduced us to a gathering of fans through her sheer talent. This was a spontaneous reaction to this young woman who was simply grabbing the brass ring and holding on for dear life. She was a definite call-back.

She and her pianist started to pack up to leave as we sat stunned and just looked at her. Then she stopped while putting on her coat, turned to us and said, “You guys are a great audience. Would you mind terribly if I sang one more? I have a new audition song I’ve been working on and I’m feeling like now’s the time I should try it out.”

We just about fell all over ourselves helping her back out of her coat. Now we were running late, we were backed up with others waiting to sing, we needed to move on, but no one cared. We weren’t going to miss this.

She and her pianist took a moment as we settled back into our chairs for the finale. Betty sang Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”, [NOTE: Ms Buckley later clarified this song to be, in fact, Joni Mitchel’s “I Had A King”] probably one of my all-time favorite songs and a very different kind of a song at that time for a Broadway audition – a pop song. But she, again, got inside of that song, found it and worked it and took us on an emotional ride that still remains in my bones today.

I wept openly, I lost my breath, I began to shake uncontrollably. I fell in love. She had sung all three songs directly to me. It was as if there had been no one else in the room except Betty and me.

She finished. She grabbed her coat. “Thanks, guys.  That was great.”  She rushed out.

Stunned again, I turned and looked at Steve Tesich sitting on my left. Steve simply looked at me and, dumbstruck, said, “She sang the whole song to me.”

Over the years, I’ve often wondered how she did that. How she so completely personalized the moment for each of us. Jacob had had the same experience as both Steve and me. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if her piano player felt the same.

Ah Talent…  It’s a beautiful thing.

We all have it, you know. It’s lying in there somewhere either being used or for some, unexplored and therefore dormant.

Others, like Betty, find it, seize it, grab it by the throat, work it, practice it, commit to it and have the guts to lay it before the world.

Betty let it all out that day. That audition was a $1000 ticket. Scalpers would have made a fortune. We were privileged to attend.

She did not get the part. Ultimately, she was too young. We tried to force a square peg into a round hole because we had all fallen in love that day and just had to have her in our show, but in the end practicality won out. She was the wrong type. Simply too young for Madam Madeleine.

I saw Betty perform many times on Broadway after that, performing at the top of her game with costumes and lights and sets and orchestra and adoring cheering fans. She was always magnificent.

But never as good as that day when she sang…  just for me.

For more inspirational music and thoughts from Peter Link, please visit Watchfire Music.