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All the entries are in and it’s time to announce the Top Ten finalists for our Gleek Talent Showcase Contest.
It’s Round 2!

We’ve looked through all the entrants’ videos, and we’ve picked our Top Ten! These finalists displayed some of the best talent with their videos entries.

Keep in mind the prizes that are at stake for the winners:
First Place -- 1 Signed Glee Script & 1 Signed Poster from the Gleek Tour
Second Place -- 1 Signed Glee Cast Photograph
Third Place -- 1 Glee Hat

To be fair, please watch all the contests’ videos before voting in the poll at the bottom of the post.

Voting will end on March 29th, which is when we will announce the winners. Good luck!

1) Stephanie Ciotta
Singing “Hole in My Heart” by Alphabeat

Stephanie is 19 years old. Though she attends school in Boston, she was born and raised in New York. She loves music and hopes to pursue a career in the field later on. Enjoy her cover of the song “Hole in My Heart” by Alphabeat! She actually spliced together video of her singing both of the parts! Neat!

2) Jack Savige
Short Film -- “Don’t Stop Believin’”

Jack is 19 years old, from Melbourne, Australia and currently studying screenwriting. He made a hilarious video based on the concept of three Glee fans writing an episode for the premiere of Glee’s second season. It is hilarious and definitely shows off his talent for film making! When deciding who to vote for, remember: W.W.C.C.D.?

3) Mary Pascoe
Singing “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin

Mary lives in Los Angeles, California, and submitted a video of a live performance she did there. She’s both an actress and a singer-songwriter. She plays the guitar, trumpet, and piano, and even self-produced an album called “Who Brings a Cat to the Disco?”! Enjoy her lively rendition of “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin!

4) Cara-Lynn Branch
Painting…

Cara-Lynn Branch is 21 years old and lives in Canada. She writes books, lyrics & scripts for musicals. Despite her major in musical theater, the talent she chose to display is more unique. Describing it just as “painting” doesn’t do it justice. Just watch it. If you don’t appreciate it, then you aren’t a true Gleek! XD

5) Celeste Kamiya
Singing “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell

Celeste lives in San Francisco, California and has been a huge Glee fan since the first 2 seconds of the pilot. Also a huge fan of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening, she enjoys singing, acting, and dancing. Although she’s too young to audition for Glee, I think you’ll love her version of “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell that she sang for our Gleek Talent Showcase.

6) Steven Karunphand
Singing “Ordinary People” by John Legend

Steven Karunphand is from Belleville, New Jersey. He’s 21 years old and currently attending college at Fordham University in New York. For our contest, he sang “Ordinary People” by John Legend. Enjoy!

7) Rebecca Michelson
Singing “Terrified” by Kara DioGuardi & an Original Song

Rebecca goes to school in Boston, but lives just outside of Philadelphia. She’s a freshman in college and loves to sing, play the guitar and play the piano. She says that she secretly wants to be on Broadway someday, but has major nerves. Maybe one day! Enjoy an original song about her love of Glee, a Kara DioGuardi song and a bit of piano playing.

8) Jean Ryan Escalante
Singing “Swallowed in the Sea” by Coldplay, a cappella

Jean is 22 years old and his hometown is Yellowknife, NT in Canada. He’s currently attending Vancouver Film School. His musical background includes three years in his high school’s choir, one semester in concert band, and a supporting role in a musical with a solo. Also, he gets a lot of vocal practice by singing in the shower every day. Here’s his a cappella version of “Swallowed in the Sea” by Coldplay.

9) Katherine Paige
Singing “Someone to Watch Over Me” by Gershwin.

Paige is 14 years old and lives in Bakersfield, California. Recently she played the role of Mrs. Potts in a production of Beauty & The Beast, and although she’s too young to audition for Glee, she sent us a video of her singing “Someone to Watch Over Me” by Gershwin. Enjoy!

10) Elena Dudum
Singing “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles

Elena is 17 years old, lives in San Francisco, California and is Palestinian-American. She loves being in musical theater productions, both in her school and with local theater companies. When she isn’t singing, she enjoys designing and sewing her own line of clothing. For our contest, she sang “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles. [Warning: the audio's a little quiet, so you may want to turn your volume up.]

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Cast your votes!

In the spirit of Glee, please do NOT spam vote by voting a ton of time for one person. Every voter should vote once, selecting all the contestants that they’d like to win. Let’s keep this contest as fair as possible, so it’s truly the most talented person winning, not just the person that got the most spam votes. Thank you very much and good luck to all the contestants! :)
[Edit: Also, voting before looking at the results or reading the comments will help keep the contest more fair and balanced. Thanks!]

poll by twiigs.com

Update 3/1/10: And the winner is… Anthony P C!
Congrats, Anthony! We’ll have Kerry burn you your free CD and send you some signed sheet music, too! :)
Thanks to everyone who entered!
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You probably remember our interview with Kerry Muzzey from last week and we’re happy to say that his new album is now finally out! It is called “Home Movies 2″, and I have been listening to it non-stop for days. I’m in love with it! It wasn’t going to be on iTunes for a while, but after all of the positive responses, iTunes rushed it to live status. Talk about the power of the Gleeks!

The following songs on the album are actually inspired by some of Kerry’s (and our) favorite scenes from Glee:

Emma
Lunch Table for One
Chalk it Up to Fate
Mixed Signals
Ten Seconds
The Tentative Flirtations of a High School Guidance Counselor
The Truth Hurts
Where There’s a Will

As you can tell, some of them are a little subtler than others. (Haha, The Tentative Flirtations of a High School Guidance Counselor… xD) If you want to buy it on iTunes, it is available here: Kerry Muzzey – Home Movies 2. Also, it’s available on other digital music marketplaces, including Amazon.com.

As a thank you to all the Glee fans who loved “Looking Back” on Glee, Kerry will be giving away a free copy of his latest CD, including some signed sheet music! :D All you have to do is leave a comment below and we will contact the lucky winner by email. Or, you can send me an email at rob@gleefan.com to be entered! Good luck!
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Want to show off your talent to Glee fans around the world? Maybe even a Glee cast member or two? ;) Then this is an opportunity for you!

All you have to do is make a video entry for our contest, showcasing your talent! You’ll have the chance to be seen by thousands of GleeFan.com readers who will be voting on the videos, as well as some of the Glee cast members! :D

We’ll be awarding prizes to the winners:
[Edit 2/26/10: Click on the names of the prizes to see pics of them! :D]
First Place – 1 Signed Glee Script & 1 Signed Glee Poster from the Gleek Tour
Second Place – 1 Signed Glee Cast Photograph
Third Place – 1 Glee Hat

So here’s what you need to do:
1) Record a video of yourself showing off whatever talents you have! You can be singing, dancing, acting, whatever! You can perform a song from Glee, or a song from your favorite band or musical. You can perform a monologue of your choice or bust a move! Just show us what you’ve got. :)
2) Upload your video (no more than 5 minutes long) to YouTube or a similar video site. Make sure to mention that it’s for this contest and link to GleeFan.com in the video description.
3) Send us an email at Rob@GleeFan.com including your name, where you live, a link to your audition video and tell us about yourself.

We will be picking the top 10 videos and we’ll let YOU vote on them during Round 2 of the contest! [Edit 2/22/10: By "we", I mean myself, Tinkers, Travis, Rowell, Laurie and Shelly. =) Trust me, it will not be just MY top 10, it will be a general consensus of who should be the top 10.]

All entries must be submitted by Monday night, March 1st at 11:59 p.m. EST, which is when Round 1 ends.

Round 2 begins on March 8th, so come back ready to vote for your favorites! Good luck, Gleeks! :)

[Edit 2/27/10: If you're wondering about all the negative comments, they're FAKE! Go here for more info on the 1 person who commented with all those fake names!]

Note: By submitting your content, you are giving www.GleeFan.com and its affiliates permission to transmit, redistribute, and use such content in any promotional manner in perpetuity. A submission does not necessarily guarantee that your content will be featured. You must be at least 13 years of age to enter.

GleeFan.com is seeking new affiliates and giving away Glee merchandise at the same time!

GleeFan.com is starting a new Affiliates page and we want to exchange links with the best International Glee Fansites and Glee Cast Member Fansites!

We will be giving away some Glee merchandise to the winners. You can enter to be one of the 3 randomly selected winners in one of two ways:

1) Send us an email at Rob@GleeFan.com, linking to an international Glee fansite (main language cannot be English, unless it is specific to a country besides the USA) OR a fansite for any Glee cast member (can by in any language). These are the two categories we are trying to build up on our Affiliates page, but we need your help finding the best ones!

2) If you own an international Glee fansite or a Glee cast member fansite as described above, email us at Rob@GleeFan.com with the following mini-application:
Your Name:
The Website’s Name:
The Website’s URL:
Why you should be listed on our Affiliates page:
By sending us this information, you agree to link to our homepage (http://www.gleefan.com) from your fansite as an affiliate. Also, include your site’s affiliate button if you have one. (Completely optional.)

Please read the above post very carefully before sending us an email. Thank you!

We will ALWAYS be accepting applications to become an affiliate, but the contest portion will end at the end of the month, on February 28th.

Christmas came a little early for me when I received my advanced review copy of Glee, Vol. One: Road to Sectionals yesterday. If you want to see all of the DVD set’s general info (such as episode listings), then you should visit my recent post: “Glee” Season 1, Vol. 1: Road to Sectionals – Dec. 29th!

Some of the first things that I noticed when I played the DVD were all the cool menus! Everything is organized quite nicely, and each menu screen has a different background featuring the different Glee characters. It plays the a cappella music that is used for background music and scene transitions in the show. I really like it. :)

From the title menu, you can choose to automatically play all the episodes, you can select a specific episode (which is handy since it features a nice episode summary), you can go to the ’set up’ and adjust the subtitles (English, Spanish, French or Portuguese) and lastly, you can watch the bonus features!

Now I’ll get into the bonus features, aka ‘Extras’. The first is called Welcome to McKinley! and it features the hilarious Principal Figgins. With the help of McKinley’s AV club, Figgins has created a welcome video for 8th graders that are about to start school at McKinley High. Iqbal Theba, the actor who plays Figgins, has perfect comedic timing and I promise that the entire video (which is a little over 5 mins long) will crack you up.

Next is a Glee Music Video. It features the Glee cast’s version of Somebody to Love and is edited together very well. It uses a lot of promo footage that was shot when the show was new (bits of which might look familiar from early Glee promos) and adds in some scenes from the first few episodes. Then they creatively edit in some of the song lyrics and the result is a video that perfectly capture’s the feeling of Glee’s early days. I LOVE it. :)
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Attention all LA Gleeks! Jane Lynch (who plays the hilariously heinous Coach Sue Sylvester) will be on the hit late night talk show Lopez Tonight this Tuesday, December 8th!

If you’ll be in the Los Angeles area, tickets to see her on the show are available now! Go to www.lopeztonight.com/audience and enter this exclusive promotional code given to GleeFan.com: “jlynch”. Better hurry, tickets are limited!

Note: You must be at least 18 years old to request tickets online, and everyone must be at least 16 years old to attend the taping. The show tapes in Burbank, CA. Remember to use “jlynch” as the promotional code!

After reading through hundreds and hundreds of questions that were sent in, Tinkers and I were able to pick 10 questions to send to Chris Colfer! I hope you enjoy the Q&A, and hopefully we can have more in the future. The entire Q&A is posted after the jump. Feel free to comment about it below!

A big thanks to Chris Colfer for being kind enough to answer our questions so quickly! :)

Q: “If the Glee cast were to ever go on an international tour, which country would you most like to visit? :D”
– Ayesha
A: How could I only pick one? England, France, and Black Forest Germany. I’d also like to go skiing on the Matterhorn in Switzerland and eat my weight in pasta in Italy. Knowing me I’d probably sneak over to Austria and find the Sound of Music filming locations.

Q: “Do you think it will feel different when you go back to filming? Will you be more nervous filming now that Glee has been so wildly successful? Is there more pressure?”
– Rose
A: Yikes, now that you mention it, there might be! We filmed the first 13 just hoping it’d be successful and hoping there would be lots of fans. I think now that we’ve found success and have seen how much the show is loved by you guys it’ll feel like what we’re doing has more purpose to it. (Insert “Purpose” from Avenue Q)

Q: “I bet it was hard, performing in a wheelchair for the majority of the episode [Wheels]! What was that like? Were you nervous about the fan reactions–especially the ones from those bound to a wheelchair themselves?”
– Jennifer
A: We all had major biceps by the time that fiasco was over! We managed to learn it in two days and film it in one! (No idea how we pulled that off!) That episode dealt with a lot of sensitive issues that I think were handled beautifully. Thankfully the feeling has been mutual with all the groups it related too.
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Parade Magazine asked me to write a 15 question quiz for them to accompany their exclusive interview and photo shoot with Matthew Morrison. It will test not only your knowledge of Glee plots, but also trivia about the actors and some hilarious details.

Chris Colfer, who plays Kurt Hummel, will soon be answering some questions from GleeFan.com readers!

We will be doing a Q&A with him in the same format of the ones which we have done with Jenna Ushkowitz and Amber Riley. I will select about 10 questions, so please have your questions submitted by 11:59pm EST on Thursday night, November 19th.

You may either leave your questions here as a comment, or email them to me directly at Rob@GleeFan.com with the subject “Chris Colfer Fan Question(s)”. Remember to include your real name and optionally your country since we will include them with the questions. Also, use your real email because I will be sending out an email to the people whose questions were selected.

Try to make your questions original, use proper grammar, and don’t worry about sending in a stupid question. There are no stupid questions… but if it is stupid, I just wont select it. ;)

On Monday, November 9th, Fox held an advance screening of this week’s episode of Glee, “Wheels“. Our LA rep, Shelly (@GleekShelly) got tickets to the event and wrote up her full report! Producers Dante Di Loretto, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan were there to introduce the episode, as were castmates Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina), Chris Colfer (Kurt) and Kevin McHale (Artie)!

At the end of the report, there is a slight spoiler about a very special guest star, but I promise you that you will not be disappointed if you read it. :) Enjoy!

I apologize in advance for the picture quality – I had an epic camera failure and had to resort to using my iPhone. :(

When I arrived at the ArcLight at 6:30, there were about 20-25 people already in line.

They started handing out tickets and wristbands at 7:30 and let the line in at 8.

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If you follow me on Twitter (@GleekRob), then you would know that we now have a LA rep for GleeFan.com! I have known Shelly for a while now through our sister site, GleeForum.com, and she is awesome! She lives in the LA area and has had the chance to go to multiple Glee events, including the screening of the second episode and Q&A at Outfest 2009 and the taping of episode 13, “Sectionals”. If you have a Twitter account, make sure to follow her! (@GleekShelly)

Here is her report of her most recent adventure at the Glee soundtrack signing at The Grove in LA. The rest of the report is after the jump. Enjoy! :)

I arrived at The Grove at around 3 pm, and was told to line up down the block from Barnes and Noble and Banana Republic. There was already a massive line down the side of the store and around the corner – the first group in line had gotten there at around 11 am.

Craziness.
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When at the DC stop of The Gleek Tour, Tinkers and I had the chance to interview some of the cast members of Glee! Here is a video of us asking some questions to Chris Colfer, Mark Salling, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith and Amber Riley. Then check back to this post for our video documenting the rest of the event, which was also edited by Tinkers. Thanks to all the cast for being so wonderful, the Hot Topic staff for helping us out and the people from Fox for making it all happen. The transcript is posted after the break. ["Read the rest..."]

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Here is a video of Tinkers and me on our adventure at the Glee Hot Topic tour. Special thanks to Tinkers from GleeForum.com for all the awesome video editing! We will soon have video up of our interviews with the cast. Enjoy!

The music in the background is Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind.

Recently, you submitted questions for Glee’s Amber Riley. Now we have her answers for the questions that were chosen to be a part of this fun Q&A. If you like the Q&A, let us know in the comments section! We would like to thank Amber for being nice enough to answer the fan questions and we will hopefully have more in the future!

Enjoy the Q&A and feel free to comment! All questions after the first 4 are after the jump. :)

Q: “What’s your most memorable moment between you and your cast mates, and why?” – Melanie
A: I think the night we saw the first commercial had to be the most memorable for me. It was the first time it felt real.

Q: “Hi Amber! First let me say I love you on Glee, and I can’t wait for more Mercedes! Secondly, I have to wonder since three of your principle cast mates have already debuted on Broadway, is it something you plan/hope to do in later life?” –Korey
A: I have always wanted to appear in a musical, because I love acting and singing equally, I just think it will be a great fit! But we shall see :)

Q: “Hi Amber, “Bust Your Windows” was awesome. You are definitely a triple threat! You’re voice is so soulful and powerful. I remember in an interview Lea saying, “Take a Bow” by Rihanna was kind of hard to sing. Did you feel that way about any songs you sing this season?” – Eunice
A: Yes, I don’t consider myself a “gritty” singer as they say. I have a softer toned voice and I’m not a belter by nature. So doing songs like “Bust Your Windows” was kind of difficult. I had to dig deep from a different place.

Q: “Amber, I heard your rendition of “Bust Your Windows” and I have to say, your voice is unforgettable. When or how did you first start singing?” – Lucy
A: I was actually 2 years old when mother discovered how much I loved music and how easy it was for me to pick up the songs that she would sing. My first performance was at a park. I just remember singing and a lot of clapping at the end, but I was only 4 at the time.
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Update: The Q&A is up! Check it out, here.

How would you like for Glee’s Amber Riley to answer one of your questions? Well that just might happen! We are now taking fan submitted questions for Amber Riley, who plays everyone’s favorite diva, Mercedes Jones. If you have a question about anything from singing to going on tour, make sure to send it in by 11:59pm EST on the night of Thursday, August 13th. To send in your question, email it to me at rob@gleefan.com or leave a comment here with your name and email. We are going to pick some of the best ones and send them on to her to be answered.

Then remember to check back later to see if your question was answered when we post the entire Q&A. Good luck!