Anything Goes might not be Broadway’s most well-known show (seriously, how many of the songs could you hum right now?) but it’s got a cute dog, so I’m pretty much all in. For its fall production of the Cole Porter musical, Arena Stage is pulling from local talent. On Saturday, 20 D.C.-area pups (narrowed down from 45 applicants) gathered at the Southwest theater, where they all sat, heeled, and tail-wagged through Arena Stage’s first public canine auditions.

Arena will select two dogs to play the role of Cheeky the pup on alternate nights of the show, which has its premiere in November. Arena didn’t specify much about what they’re looking for in a dog, only that pups be less than 20 pounds, and have “that indescribable ‘it’ factor.”

Though I was told I’m not allowed to put “DCist dog enthusiast” on my business cards, I still attended Saturday’s auditions to share notes on the day’s most memorable pups. After all, we could be looking at the next Uggie from The Artist or what’s-his-name from Frasier.

Saturday, September 22, 9:45 a.m.: I’m on the Metro scrolling through photos of dogs, which means so far today is a day just like any other. Instead of visiting the pages of my favorite Instagram dogs, though, I’m surveying the finalists in today’s dog auditions.

9:55 a.m.: Once at the theater, I’m escorted up to Arena’s balcony space, which serves as a green room for the waiting stars-to-be. Audition times are staggered, so only two dogs are waiting for the first call times.

9:58 a.m. Unlike participants in most high-stakes competitions, pups Onyx and Rosie are in fact here to make friends, and are sniffing and leaping all over each other, tiny tails wagging. Both of them are new to acting, making them the first of many amateur stars I’d meet at the audition. Rosie’s mom, Jill Watts, tells me that they only applied because a family friend did. Rosie got a callback, the friend did not. Isn’t there a Lifetime movie that starts that way? Onyx, 4, is wearing a tie. His owner Elina Yoo tells me that he didn’t dress up for the audition, the tie is part of his everyday look.

10:15 a.m.: I accompany Onyx to his audition. Unlike aspiring actors at any other audition, who might lay a headshot down and shake the hands of the panel, Onyx bounces into the room and strains against his leash to sniff their feet. Along with Arena Stage artistic director Molly Smith, who’s directing Anything Goes, the judges include Victor Vazquez, Arena’s casting director; Ashley Valm, a shelter behavior manager with the Humane Rescue Alliance; and Emily Abril, behind the extremely adorable dog Instagram account @sebastianlovesluna.

10:16 a.m.: Yoo says she’s getting Onyx trained to be a therapy dog, so he’s got some tricks and commands down. Valm crouches down to meet Onyx, who responds with an enthusiastic lick. Valm picks him up and carries him around, explaining that they want to put the dog through things they’ll experience during the show. (The casting call sheet specified that the dogs selected would need to be “friendly with all types of humans, tolerant of tap-dancing and other loud noises or sudden movements, and comfortable being held by strangers, carried in a basket, and being ‘at sea.'”) She takes him by the leash and walks him around, just like in Best in Show. Then Yoo uses treats and asks Onyx to “pray,” prompting him to sit on his hind legs with his front paws together. The judges coo “awwwwwww,” for the first of what I’m sure would be 849 times that day.

10:19 a.m.: Valm explains that she wants to do a “startle test,” to see how Onyx will react to loud sounds. She drops a binder on the ground from waist height, just three feet away from Onyx. The dog flinches, but sniffs the binder on the floor curiously. No fear!

10:20 a.m.: It’s Rosie’s turn. Vazquez asks Watts and her daughter, Molly, about the 2-year-old dog’s special skills. “She can sit and she can twirl,” Watts says proudly. Rosie scurries off to sniff around a few times, but largely does well on the tests. Valm says she’s going to try a “quick rush up to her,” and runs up to the dog squealing “Rosieeeeee!” Rosie does not care for this, and runs behind the table. “She’s afraid of getting stepped on,” laments Molly Watts.

10:30 a.m.: After each audition, reps from Arena give the dogs pupcakes as a reward. While the Charlie, a Jack Russell-looking pup, is feasting on his treat, I ask Brenda Loya and Fernando Soto how they found out about the audition. “We were walking with him around The Wharf and a lady stopped us and told us Charlie should audition,” Soto tells me. So as not to give Charlie a big head, I don’t tell him that Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, and Sarah Michelle Gellar were also discovered while out in public.

10:41 a.m. I spot a tiny Pomeranian-ish dog vibrating with excitement and know nothing more clearly than that we must become friends. Her name is Cindy, which is short for Cinderelli. Cindy ping-pongs between receiving adoration and cuddles from me and another reporter. She (the dog, not the reporter) is wearing a baby pink ruffled onesie that reads “Love potion No. 9.” Her owner, Tamar Nedzar, explains that she had a sailor costume picked out for today’s audition, to stay on theme. But Cinderelli picks her own outfits, and “she picked this today.”

10:50 a.m.: “I think she did well,” Nedzar tells me after the audition. “She was happy, that’s all I care about.” I remark that Cinderelli acted like a real pro, and Nedzar agrees. “You better not be an amateur at 11!” she tells the dog. Cinderelli does not understand this, nor anything happening today, really.

10:55 a.m. I meet Gabby, another sort-of pomeranian. Her owner, Kim Rueben, doesn’t know much more than I do about the character of Cheeky in Anything Goes, only that the dog is owned by the wealthy Mrs. Harcourt, and only appears a few times, usually carried in a basket or in Harcourt’s arms. Gabby is another amateur actor, and Rueben figured if she was going to make her acting debut, “it better be a play where the dog just gets held three times.”

11:00 a.m.: I spot Charlie the West Highland white terrier from a mile away, having recognized him as the only dog on the call sheet with a professional headshot. I ask his owner, Tiane Benson, if I can take a photo. She says yes, and then almost immediately follows it up with “He was Toto in The Wiz,” a recent Ford’s Theatre production. I tell him I didn’t recognize him, but that I liked The Wiz, so that makes me a big fan of his work. Charlie is not impressed by this—he must get this all the time from fans.

11:05 a.m.: Charlie and Benson win over the judges with their professionalism, especially getting a rousing “aww” when Charlie demonstrates his “kiss on the cheek” trick to Valm, the trainer. Vazquez asks if Charlie has an Instagram account, a question he’s been putting to nearly all of the owners. “No, he has a Facebook page, because his mother’s old,” Benson says.

11:10 a.m.: Out on the waiting room/balcony, I spot a woman and a tiny black poodle sitting apart from the other mingling pups. The woman, Hilary Richardson, tells me Hugo the dog is a little anxious around all this activity. I assure Hugo that I, too, don’t like crowds. I choose to believe Hugo appreciates this. Hugo is another new actor, and Richardson tells me that they’ve been preparing for this audition. “I have a friend who’s a pianist, she played the [Anything Goes] songs on piano and he was enraptured. He barked when she stopped,” she says. “So I think this might be his sort of thing.”

11:20 a.m. During a break in auditions, I ask Smith to tell me what she’s looking for in a cast member for her musical. “It’s a combination of a dog that has particular sweetness about it,” she muses, and that can keep its cool amid crowds, tap dancing, and loud music. “We’re looking for that kind of intelligence or beauty or spunkiness or humor,” Smith adds, writing my next Tinder bio for me.

11:30 a.m.: Owner Jordan Levy is describing her long-haired dachshund mix, Olly, as “a spitfire” to the judges, but he’s proving himself to be more of a sweetheart. When Valm crouches down to administer her tests, Olly settles immediately onto her lap for a cuddle. Smith has come out from behind the table to pick up every dog, but she practically climbs over the table to snuggle with Olly. The dog leans his head on her chest and it’s clear Smith is in love. “Olly and Molly sounds like a good team,” Vazquez says. It’s clear to everyone in the room: This part is Olly’s to lose. It’s practically icing on the cake when Levy adds that she enters Olly into costume contests (last year he was a Georgetown Cupcake) and has an Instagram account where she posts his cutest looks. The judges have to ask Smith three times to put the dog down.

11:30 a.m.: Levy tells me that she thinks it went well. He’s very good around people and lots of activity, she says, probably because she had him while she was in college. She heard about the audition from someone she volunteers with at City Dogs Rescue. Now they have to run, because they have an animal costume contest to get to. Olly is going to be the snake in a terrarium, Levy is going as the zookeeper. I’m starting to suspect Olly and Levy were created in a lab to be the cutest thing in the world in order to distract foreign spies or something.

11:45 a.m.: The last dog, Ellie, is here, and she couldn’t be less interested in me. It hurts my feelings until her owner, Bobby Schmeltz, tells me that she was found living on the streets, so she’s pretty much only interested in people if they have food. This makes her easy to train, he says, because she’ll do anything for a treat.

11:50 a.m.: It’s Ellie’s time to shine. Schmeltz seems nervous, Ellie does not. She waits expectantly for a snack before doing each trick, and I have to admire her insistence on only working for pay. She already has what it takes to be a great freelancer. Smith notes that Ellie is “very alert.”

12:00 p.m.: The judges shoo us out to deliberate, just like on America’s Next Top Model. I confer with another reporter, and we agree that Olly is the clear favorite, followed by Charlie the stage dog. We won’t find out until later this week, so until then, all I can do is queue up all the new dog Instagram accounts I’ve learned about to scroll through on my Metro ride home.