How To Follow Subtle Directions

I recently went through audishes at an athletic improv theater. I am excited to report they turned out well for me and I will be playing professionally at this theater. The numbers show it was a tight race- 120 people audished and 9 were hired. I don't want to be smarmy and I would have posted this had I not been hired, but yet again I saw some of my talented friends sabotage themselves.

Things we could figure out before the audish:

• The word 'professional' appears 4 times in the post, including "professional appearance" listed as a plus. What does this mean? Business casual, no jeans!

Things we learned during:

• Kudos to the artistic director for starting the audish with a clear and honest speech about the process and what they were looking for. This included being family friendly, no swears. So... be clean and smart! Maybe this is not the best time to sexually harass your scene partner.

30 people were in the callback and honestly I thought everyone could have made the cut. However, there were still a few people who did not follow the two main directions they layed out- people were dressed very casual and the audish started with a blue scene. In fact, the auditor STOPPED THE SCENE and repeated the request for clean comedy. Yikes!

Does this stuff make a difference? Maybe not, but I'm always in favor of being professional and following directions. There were excellent people who were hilarious and were not hired. Auditors might not even be fully aware of it, but if it comes down to two people and one of them followed directions...

As always, stand out in a positive way.