Trav's Thoughts

Welcome to another round of auditions for



This week we're in Atlanta with judges Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy, and Lil C.

The first kid up has tremendous body control and outrageous lines. His name is Billy and although he has a few bad habits that Nigel pointed out, the judges put him through to Vegas.

Atlanta evidently has some talented dancers who don't understand how to perform and connect with an audience. There is a whole montage of similar dancers and comments from the judges. Then there was a guy with the performance energy but lacking the dance talent. Oy.

But then we saw some lyrical talent...dancers combining performance and technique and emotion, and moving straight through to Vegas.

When faced with a physically challenged dancer, this show first and foremost judges the dance ability. Of course there is acknowledgement of the physical disability. It's part of the person and does put the dancer at something of a disadvantage. But the notes all go to the performance and the dancing, and I respect that. There is a gal who lost her hand to cancer surgery. She makes it through to choreography but isn't able to learn the steps well enough and doesn't make it through to Vegas. She is talented and I hope she works hard and tries again.

We've got one more night of auditions this week, so tune in later when we head to New Orleans for the first time ever.



Dang...getting that last win to clinch the NL West is tough. My Dodgers missed another chance last night, losing to San Diego. We couldn't even back into the title because Colorado beat Milwaukee.

So the magic number remains 1.

Grrrrr.