Hollywood Week heats up ‘Idol’

Associated Press

PASADENA, Calif.

If the “American Idol” formula of past seasons holds true, the show’s emotional temperature is about to skyrocket as Hollywood Week auditions begin airing tonight.

It’s one thing for contestants to be rejected in the nationwide tryouts before the celebrity judges have lifted them out of the crowd. It’s another when, hopes raised and dreams in hand, they travel to Los Angeles and discover their gold ticket is a one-way pass to rejection.

The Hollywood Week auditions — which were taped recently — whittled a field of 300-plus singers to 60 semifinalists. As contestants showed, the fervor to win “American Idol” still burns strong in the show’s 10th year.

After one woman sang her heart out and was rejected, she begged the judges to reconsider.

They refused. She left the stage and fell to her knees in the theater aisle, weeping.