Guest Blog

In today's guest post: another example of using improv in an audish!

Last year I was asked to audition for some TV show coming through town that needed improvisers who could act like a variety of "young hollywood types." They gave us a list of types we could choose from. You had to pick one, dress as that character, come up with a "story to tell" about your character and lastly they'd conduct an interview with that character. They really stressed that the characters needed to be realistic so they didn't want any wacky voices or over the top stuff.

I spent all this time coming up with a story to tell. I knew that the improvised interview part wouldn't be too difficult, but the story thing was stressing me out. I wrote it and rehearsed it like a mad man. It was like really intricate and had all these dramatic details about my character and his history.

Well, I got to the audition (they were also auditioning for a McGolden Arches commercial in the same place so there were a bunch of child actors running around, rehearsing lines and being precocious) and when they called me in they just said: don't use any funny voices, stand on the "X" and just be your character.

They then launched right into the interview portion. I didn't even have to tell them the story.

I think the reason they did this was to sort of throw us off our game a little bit, just because the role we were auditioning for was to be improvised. They probably wanted to see if we could think on our feet and handle unexpected stuff being thrown at us.

After that initial shock, the rest of the audition went really well. Later, I talked to another friend who auditioned who said he used a voice for his character. He didn't get a call back. Duh.