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.

Guest Blog!

In today's guest blog...

I do not have an agent, but I've done a workshop with a casting director and he will occasionally call me in to audition for commercial and film projects. Maybe that's an overstatement, he's called me in twice. :)

The first audition I went on was for an industrial film. I had been given sides earlier for a group scene. The scene required 4 people, but in my time slot one of the people didn't show so the casting assistant was reading the lines. This is where the trouble happened. The casting assistant wasn't really reading the lines verbatim and was paraphrasing at times. Not usually a big deal, except that she kept leaving out my cue line which was a question, my line was the answer. I definitely let it throw me and my timing was way off and I got wrapped up in how the scene didn't make sense now. Not a smooth move. Looking back I wish I'd just pressed on as though nothing was wrong.

So I guess that's the lesson there. You can only control what you do. Would it have been better if the casting assistant had stuck to the script? Probably. But there was no way for me to control that. I had the power to control my reaction to the skipped line and in the future I'm pretty sure I'll do so with a lot more poise.

Another Guest Blog

I am loving all of these audish stories! Here's another from an anonymous friend:

Collaboraction Sketchbook Auditions
The set up is this:
A lively celebration of staged theatrical works, music and fine art, SKETCHBOOK is a short play festival like no other. Each year Collaboraction guides more than 200 artists through an exciting collaboration where 10-20 short performances, each seven minutes or less in length, mingle with visual art and music. The SKETCHBOOK Festival is Collaboraction at its best: breaking down the walls that divide theater, music, visual art, video and the Internet, transforming the space into a singular world where audiences can be both spectator and artist, contributing to dynamism of each performance.

As an actor you get the opportunity to work with a lot of people in the field, reviewers are certain to come out, and it adds some "cred" to your resume as a legitimate theater festival in the city. The catch, it's a 20 second audition. Literally 20 seconds. This is my third year doing the Collaboraction auditions.

The first year, I stressed and stressed the week before. What will I do with my 20 seconds. It's so short. How will they know? I have to show them something AWESOME! What's awesome in 20 seconds? WHAT'S AWESOME IN 20 SECONDS??? A joke, a joke is awesome in 20 seconds. What's funny? I just happened to be doing my taxes at the time, when "bing" my taxes are pretty funny. I make no money, write off everything, and pretty much end up a wash. So that's what I did. I read my taxes. It went over. I got two callbacks.

The second year, I was so busy with life, I completely forgot about the audition and never showed up. Which is another good thing about Sketchbook auditions, they are SO fast and they see SO many people, they just don't have time to worry about those who no show. I can't believe I did, it's very unlike me, but it just slipped past me.

This year I signed up, and decided just not to worry about it, I mean 20 seconds. they did amp it up this year though. You got two 20 second slots. One that was supposed to be physical and one that was supposed to be monologue-y. So the night before I was at the theater and I found a headband with antenna on it. I thought those look like a crickets. I can make a cricket noise, and "voila", first 20 seconds. I was a cricket. Then I thought, hey I do improv and I like to sing. I'll just make up a song about someone in the room, second 20 seconds. I made up a song about some guy in the room.

All in all I thought the audition went horribly. I kind of pooped out in the song, didn't get anything to rhyme, started singing in a crazy Texas accent that came from nowhere, maybe sang for 11 seconds. The thought entered my mind, perhaps just perhaps I might have wanted to prep a little more on this part.

My own perceptions aside, I did get a callback. Which I find hilarious, and leaves me with the question: does it really matter what I do? Probably not, just as long as I show up.

Konfidence is Key

My evil plan is working! Here's a guest blog from K:

I went on a an audition that called for "classical sounding" singers. Which I'm not really, but hell, why not? It was for Christmas songs and I like Christmas! I get there and sing through my accompanied piece (very much not classical) and then started my Christmas Carol a capella as they had asked. I was doing "What Child Is This" but my nerves got in the way of my breath so I sounded like "What chil- (gasp) is thi--(gasp)is who (gasp) laaaaaaaid to ree- (gasp) est" She actually stopped me and said "Don't be nervous. We want you to succeed. Use your full voice." Ouch. It definitely felt like a middle school audition again.

I’ve been a little slow on the VO audishes lately so I don’t have many fun stories in that department. Fortunately for all of us I have fabulously talented friends. Molly recently blogged about a relevant topic and has given me permission to share it here:

Just wanted to share a tip. Let me start off by saying this specific tip applies to on-camera auditions only...

I interned at a casting office and sometimes still free-lance there. Recently something came to my attention. A beautiful, slender, statuesque blonde came into the room. She slated her name. The camera pulled out to get a full body shot. I looked at her, oh so pretty. I looked at the monitor. Oh so pretty hair, shirt, nice jeans...Wait.

Is she hiding cankles? She's so tiny. Why on the screen does she look like big-foot? Oh. It's the Ugg boots with the jeans tucked in. They're creating an illusion.


Read the rest

Chicago Sympony

I recently did a google search to find out if other people were blogging about audishes in Chicago. This great blog that focuses on classical music had just posted a story about audishing for the Chicago Sympony. With permission, here is part of the story:

While interesting characters come out of the woodwork for any unscreened audition, percussion auditions at the Chicago Symphony often seem to draw a lot of, well, rock drummers who think that it would be 'cool' to audition for the Chicago Symphony. While many of these people are undoubtedly also excellent classical percussionists, if you hand the typical rock drummer the Gershwin Porgy & Bess xylophone excerpt (or other such classical warhorse) you're likely to get.... interesting results.
I recall hearing about one particular percussion candidate who, coming out onstage for his audition (behind a screen, with the audition proctor next to him to answer any questions), stared in puzzlement at the cymbal part for the Symphony No. 4 by Tchaikovsky.
He looked at the cymbal part.
He looked at the proctor.
He looked at the part again.
He looked back at the proctor.
He asked:
"Hey man.... how does this tune go?"

Read the rest here.

Guest Blog: Thirsty

Courtesy of the hilarious Robert Buscemi who blogs at http://littlefishpants.blogspot.com/ :

"So I was venturing a toe back into the waters of theater, trying desperately to get back in after having unwisely strayed from the stage to go into grad school in English Lit, after having two fantastic experiences in plays senior year in undergrad.

I hated grad school and had no business there, and secretly lusted to go back into theater. The problem is I hadn't been in a play in about three years, and I'd never memorized or performed an audition monologue before, ever. The two plays I'd gotten into in undergrad had just entailed script-readings, if I recall correctly.

I was so nervous to audition that I signed up on the sheet late at night after everyone had left the building. I was that nervous and awed still by theater in general. I remember it was dark outside and I memorized a monologue for the audition from "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" after seeing the movie with Tim Roth and Gary Oldman.

The monologue is this riddling tongue-twister thing about being buried alive in a box. Very funny and playful and dark, like the play. Though I later read that it's a completely over-done monologue. But that afternoon I forced a friend to listen to me do it over and over, and by the end I had it down pretty well.

The entire monologue fled me almost immediately in the audition, and I just rambled and panicked. I got SUPER nervous and MASSIVELY flustered, so much so that
I ...
I ...
I ... grabbed one of the two auditioner's cans of soda off their table to take a swig to wet my mouth and try again.

Do you follow that? It wasn't my soda, and I didn't know them. It was just totally impulsive and unconscious. One of them said "Whoa!" or something. I just blathered out some apology and got the hell out of there.

I think I got some weird, perverse, masochistic thrill out of it though, as I often do from botched theater experiences.

That's my story."

"my favorite print audition" -> first guest blog!

Every year or two I decide to take the summer off from having a terrible day-job and once again commit myself to the unknown and unsure lifestyle of acting and auditioning. The last time I committed myself to such a lifestyle was two years ago after living over two years as a receptionist for a video game company. That day job itself was probably one of the most enjoyable 'muggle-jobs' I've had in my career, but it didn't pay much and had no benefits, so off I went head first back into the struggle.

This particular audition was for a print ad for some certain cellular phone company. I took a train to the west loop (which made me 15minutes late for the scheduled audition time) but I finally tracked down the tiny studio.

I walked in to a tiny square room with a desk in the back corner and a large conference table set up in the front area. "Nancy" the one and only person in this room told me she was the artistic director for the shoot and asked me for my info. She led me to the conference table and showed me the picture mock up for the ad which I was auditioning for. The mock up picture was of a conference style table (much like the one I was sitting at). The camera was looking down the table from the head of the table point of view. Pretend you're the president of a company and you're sitting at the head of a large conference table. Now scoot your chair back so you can see the edge of the table in front of you. Now put the camera on the table right there at the edge and take a picture. What would you see? The length and width of a conference table with the inside half of 3 or 4 people sitting at the table looking toward the camera, Yes. However, in this picture one person is sitting on the table facing the opposite way, so it's 3 half faces and one ass on the table.

"Nancy" comes over to me and says, "You'll be auditioning for THAT part" and points to the ass at the table. I get up, sit on the table and she takes a picture. Apparently my ass wasn't good enough because I didn't book the job. I guess there's always next time.

-bob