Amateur Night

Just before 7:30 p.m., the Green Room was tense.

Amanda Goris, a pudgy 11-year-old from Queens, sucked down honey from a squeezable plastic jar. “It helps the melody come out all beautiful,” she said. The teenage girls from Fully Focused, a dance group from Brooklyn, were putting on their “door-knockers” – massive triangle-shaped fake-gold earrings – and neon yellow and pink Reeboks, squealing with excitement and lip-syncing in front of full-length mirrors. “Fully focused!” one yelled, jumping in the air. In the back, Shaniece Ford adjusted the padding in her strapless turquoise dress, singing along to a portable CD player, her eyes closed.

Abruptly, a voice and music cracked through the large, white-walled room’s speakers, a live feed from the stage. “Welcome to Harlem USA! The world famous Apollo Theater!” a voice boomed over a band and applause. “It’s show time baby!”

Upstairs, that meant near pandemonium. Capone, the comic host, had the 1,500-person audience rollicking, dancing and clapping to the house band.

Downstairs, it was prayer time.

“Lord, we all join together,” a producer said, all the Amateur Night contestants holding hands in a circle, heads bowed. “We are all special, Lord. We are all winners in your name. Amen.”

***

Every Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m., since 1934, aspiring performers have stepped on the Apollo Theatre’s stage hoping for fame. The 125th Street venue is “where stars are born and legends are made,” they like to say. On stage, confidence is critical in front of bright lights, a merciless crowd and talented competition. Backstage, the make-up looks overdone; the braggadocio is subdued; frustrations come out; and camaraderie between contestants is normal.

“Performers form a certain bond. If you were booed, everyone will try and console you,” said Billy Mitchell, the Apollo’s resident historian and an on-and-off staffer since 1964, describing the Green Room’s atmosphere over the decades. “Everyone’s sitting there, nervous, wondering what’s next.”

Some of those who wondered “what’s next” include Sarah Vaughn, Cab Calloway, Jackie Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Nat King Cole, Buddy Holly, Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige and dozens more who were amateurs on a Wednesday night at the Apollo. Alternatively energizing and intimidating, every performer in the Green Room knows the musical icons who were cheered to winning the contest and, later, fame.

“To know James Brown, Billie Holiday, Lauryn Hill have all been here, it’s amazing to share in that history,” said Ché Los, 26, a spoken word artist and teacher from the Lower East Side, and a recent Amateur Night contestant who was booed off stage. “You’ve already won by being on this stage.”

The Apollo uses Amateur Night as its anchor event. In January 2008, the theater launched a $44.5 million fundraising drive as part of a multi-year, $84 million expansion and renovation plan. Once bankrupt and closed from 1975 to 1984, the Apollo’s resurrection since the mid-1990s has mirrored that of Harlem. As the neighborhood became safer, the local economy was reinvigorated, and tourism began in earnest, with the Apollo as a key attraction.

Tourism has helped the Apollo become financially viable, but it has changed the character of Amateur Night, which was once primarily attended by African-Americans. Today, approximately three-quarters of Wednesday night audiences are tourists, many of them international. Still, the crowds continue their famous booing and cat-calling, and there are long lines every week to audition for the weekly show.

“The talent is different today,” said Mitchell, who is known as “Mr. Apollo.” “Some of the performers think they have talent and don’t. Years ago, people didn’t think they had talent and did.”

In 1934, a 15-year-old name Ella Fitzgerald was the first female to win Amateur Night. Fitzgerald was scheduled to dance, but she was so intimidated by another dance group that she refused. Ralph Cooper, the creator of the event and its Master of Ceremonies, asked if she could do anything else. She purportedly responded: “I can sing a little bit.”

***

Towards the end of the night, Goris, the honey-sucking 11-year-old, was not happy. She had come in second place in the Stars of Tomorrow amateur competition (which takes place just before the main performers begin) to a 12-year-old from the South Bronx, Jamila Velazquez, and was now sitting backstage, alone in a blue dress dotted with fake diamonds.

“Do I have to stay here the whole time?” she asked no one in particular.

Marcia Barrow, 25, decided to play to role of the old pro. The Yonkers native, heavy with make-up, sat down next to Goris in the Green Room.

“I never let the competition discourage me. I was once your age too – when I lost, I practiced harder,” Barrow said, her voice plainly showing she was from New York City. Then Barrow, who had now appeared on Amateur Night three times, gave more specific advice: “You should’ve sung gospel – sang for God.”

Goris, who sang a slow, syrupy love song – “Believer” by Christina Milian – was not convinced. “But I pick the songs I want,” she said, her well-groomed stage confidence starting to crack. She sat in a folding chair, chewing on a blue bead necklace.

Instead of debating her would-be mentee, Barrow stood up. “Let me give you a hug.”

Soon, Goris disappeared to find her aunt Bridget in the crowd. As the clean up-crews began to make their ways through the aisles, the Green Room slowly emptied. The girls from Fully Focused, who had won the night’s contest, took off their fake-gold necklaces and cut-up white sweatshirts, a few of them singing to their dance music or texting on their cell phones.

Still wearing a shiny silver dress and glistening red lip-gloss, Barrow packed her roller bag, saying good-bye to the dance girls and the rapper Potential, the second-place winner. She was going home to sleep, to change, and then to her job at a K-Mart in Poughkeepsie, the night shift.

Barrow forced a smile. “I’ll be back.”