The Audition

So, I'm still on the cusp of getting a cold, though I'm fighting it desperately, but I decided to go on this audition anyway. The audition is for a touring company looking for a total of 8 people, and they've already had their equity auditions. Boy, do I know how to pick the tough ones... It's straight theatre which means no singing, so for the audition I had to perform two monologues: one contemporary and one classical. I chose my pieces from The Food Chain (which I've used before) and The Tempest (which I learned in a voice production and speech class at AMDA). I'm confident in both these pieces, and I like performing them which makes them great audition material.

I get there an hour early and wait. And wait. For musical theatre auditions, an hour early is late. That's usually about the time that we're allowed to sign-in, so people get there even earlier to be first in line. Apparently it's a little different for regular theatre. About fifteen minutes before the audition is scheduled to begin, someone shows up and hands around a sign-in sheet. I'm in slot number 2. We hand in our headshot and resume and wait some more. The monitor tells us how it's going to go: you go in, say your name, do your pieces, get out. If the guy gives you sides (lines from the play) to learn, come back out, learn them, and stick around to audition with them. It's sort of like an audition and a call-back all in one. If he doesn't give you sides, you can leave.

The first girl goes in, I pace nervously, and when she comes out, she has pages in her hands. Great. He liked her. No pressure, Julia, no pressure...

I go in, introduce myself and do my pieces. The first one (Food Chain) blows. For some reason, I just can't get into it. I'm nervous, and my mind is on other things. I'm worried about the one minute per monologue time limit, and when I accidentally skip a few lines in the middle, I just continue as though I meant to do that, even though my mind is suddenly screaming "YOU SCREWED UP!!!! OK, just let it go, get back on track, and...oops. Too late. It's over. Shake it off, and go into your next piece."

The second piece is much better. I relax a little, and remember that this is fun. I'm Ariel, a child-like spirit who just played some truly hilarious tricks on a bunch of burly sea men and made them scream like little girls while I essentially blew up their ship. Fun. It feels like it's going well, but I see out of the corner of my eye that my auditioner is carefully scrutinizing my resume with a confused frown. "AMDA? What is this 'AMDA' of which you speak?" Or maybe he didn't understand how the same person could play Laertes in Hamlet as well as Princess Peach in the musical version of Super Mario Brothers. I almost asked if he wanted me to clarify something, but didn't. I just said 'thank you' and walked out.

And now I'm home, laughing about the whole ridiculous process! Some people are great at showing their most marketable points in under 2 minutes; me, I just haven't learned that yet. But the more auditions I go on, the better I'll get.

I'm signing off now with the hope that I'll be able to post one of these once a week (that's how often I'm hoping to audition, now that I have a steady job).

Love,
Jules