Auditions, castings, workshops – they’re never the same and
they are all a bit odd.
Auditions are a necessary evil of the acting profession. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who really enjoys auditions but we all rejoice when we get them and despair when we don’t.
For the uninitiated, I’ll describe the different types
A fairly standard
audition
You have the script in advance, you read it, you prepare
your part. At the audition, you perform
the scenes you were asked to practice in advance and possibly read from another
part of the script, which because you are well prepared, you are already
familiar with.
“Bring a monologue”
auditions
Variety of reasons for these. If it’s a Shakespeare play, they may want to
see your grasp of the Bard as many people are not strong sight readers,
especially with Shakespeare. For other
works, a monologue is seen alongside a script reading and can provide a bit of
variety for the director. Sometimes the
script isn’t finished. Sometimes, they
don’t know what the hell they want so panic and ask you to bring a monologue.
Workshop auditions
These can be the most fun or the least fun kind of
auditions.
Best case scenario, you play some non-awkward games, sit in
a circle and perform your monologue and everyone claps, you might do a structured
improvisation, everyone is nice and throws themselves into it. You leave the room feeling enriched and
having swapped Twitter handles with half the group.
Worst case scenario, you have to play name games with 25
people you’ve never met, get up close and personal with someone with BO or
everyone else in the room seems to know each other and so you feel ostracized
from the get go.
Commercials auditions
Often quite fun, totally unpredictable and fairly baffling.
You often don’t know the brand you’re going in for so it can
be a bit of surprise when you get there, the casting breakdown will say “well
known high street bank” or “soft drink” for example. You always have to fill in a form,
always. If there is a script, you rarely
get it before arriving at the casting location so speed reading and practising
some reactions in the corner are necessary.
Once inside the room, there are rarely less than 7 people. Sometimes you’re introduced to everyone by
name, sometimes you have no idea who anyone is, or why they are there. As well as the director, casting director and
camera operator there is usually someone on a laptop paying zero attention to
anything that’s happening, someone who looks bored and someone who looks
incredibly anxious. The room is usually
far too small for the number of people and someone will comment on the
temperature. There are usually discarded
Pret or Starbucks containers covering every surface not already obscured by a
Mac.
Dance calls
Exactly like A Chorus
Line but without the opportunity to tell your life story
Re-calls
They like you, but they’re not sure how much.
Being “pencilled” or
“optioned”
They really like you but a big boss somewhere needs to
decide who they like the best.
Heavy pencil
They really, really like you but they’re still keeping their
options open
Release all pencils
You didn’t get it
You hear nothing
You didn’t get it
Auditions are stressful, high stakes situations for both the
casting team and the actor. The thing to
remember is that everyone in the room wants you to be the one. You, the actor, want the job and the casting
director wants you to be right as then their work is done.
There are also many reasons why you won’t get a job, all of
them out of your control – see this article in BACKSTAGE So all you can do is prepare and do your best
and then forget about it as soon as you leave the room.
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