CityView Magazine

Left | Jones is a trained parachute rigger and champion athlete, but she also has an artistic side. Here, she brings ballet to the stage for the U.S. Army Soldier Show. Photos courtesy of Tim Hipps “I got involved with stage and theater very young,” she said. She even pursued a performance degree at UNC. But in her audition video, she cautioned judges that while she was “capable of carrying a tune, vocals were not (her) strong suit,” so she tried out as a dancer. In early 2008, both women were informed that they had been selected for further auditioning at Fort Belvoir, and by mid-February, they were in Virginia undergoing an American Idol-like experience. But instead of the acerbic Simon Cowell, they had drill sergeants, standard two-mile training exercises and a work schedule that stretched from 5 a.m. to midnight. In many ways, the Army approached the audition process the same way it approaches training soldiers in any other field. “I mean, they are grilling you 24 hours a day,” Schaefer said. “They’d hand you a piece (of) music one day and tell you to learn it by tomorrow.” “I didn’t expect that,” Jones said. “One by one, you get up there to do one or two pieces and after each performance, quite literally, like American Idol, there’s an artistic director like Simon who gives you bad news, bad news, bad news and then, more bad news.” Along with 12 others – six men and six women – Schaefer and Jones were selected as cast members and it was off to six weeks of rehearsal. And then the real work began. The show wasn’t just about singing and dancing; performers were expected to load, offload, assemble and, after every show, dismantle 18 tons of equipment at each stop on the tour. They handled more than one million pounds of electrical, sound, stage and lighting gear, and when it was all loaded back up after a show, they’d climb onto the tour bus headed for the next stop. This summer, the show closed on a Saturday night in Minnesota and by Tuesday, they were rockin’ and rollin’ in Alabama. In five days, the cast went from a show at Fort Hamilton, N.Y., to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe facility in Mons, Belgium. They didn’t have to ride the bus over the Atlantic, of course, but for the next three weeks, it was back to a bus for performances in 14 European venues, from the Netherlands to Vicenza, Italy. Five days after they’d taken their bows in Vicenza, they were back home, putting on a show in Georgia. “You’re performing for soldiers’ wives and families whose morale i sometimes at th breaking point and you hear them say thing like, ‘We really needed this,’ or ‘It meant the world to me.’ ” “You’re performing for soldiers’ wives and families whose morale is sometimes at the breaking point and you hear them say things like, ‘We really needed this,’ or ‘It meant the world to me.’ ” - Sgt. Amber Jones CityViewNC.com | 23

• Cover