I know I’ve talked about audition monologues before, but I want to talk more about auditioning.
Something that every actor has been through, and will always have to go through, is auditioning. It is an unavoidable part of the actor’s life, for better or for worse. But you can’t get anywhere or do anything without auditioning. Auditioning can be super scary. When you present yourself in a way where someone is going to be judging you and deciding whether or not they want you in their show, you’re putting a lot out there. You’re putting out a lot of yourself, even if you’re embodying someone else. Auditions require thought. You need to make sure you’re pulling the right things out of your arsenal to get the role.
Auditions usually require a monologue, and obviously a song if you’re auditioning for a musical. Sometimes you’ll have to do a cold read of a scene or two from the show. Having a variety of these things is super important. Different shows and settings call for different monologues (and/or songs). You always want to make sure you have a nice mix of classic and contemporary, as you’ll be using both. I really only think about songs from musicals, but I imagine people use other songs, too. I didn’t audition for many musicals, so I definitely can’t speak to that.
Although I spent a long time as an actor, I did very little auditioning in a traditional sense. I’ve done auditions for ensemble pieces that are extremely different from typical auditions. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have my monologues. When I was auditioning for college, they wanted a classic piece and a contemporary piece. At the time, at age eighteen, I was able to do some pieces that I had spent many years working on. My classic piece was from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. It was a monologue I first performed when I was ten years old, and spent those eight years shaping. My contemporary monologue was from Shape of a Girl, a one woman play I’ve mentioned many times in this blog. It was about high school girls, so again, the age fit. I spent a good four years working on that one. I never did any auditioning as an adult, but I still had a monologue that I worked on in case I did. It was a Harper piece from Angels in America, and I worked hard on it with my mentor and teacher. Sometimes I think about pulling it out again. Just in case.
As I mentioned above, there are other types of auditions. When People’s Light started running New Voices again when I was in high school, it was a very different situation. Since it was ensemble work, they wanted to see how people worked as pieces of that ensemble rather than in different roles in a show. We didn’t present monologues or songs, we did improv and worked with each other. Some of us knew each other, and some of us didn’t. It definitely worked…that year’s ensemble was unbeatable.
It’s probably for the best that I didn’t go into acting. As I got older, auditioning got scarier and scarier for me. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it was all about how much of myself I was or wasn’t putting into my monologues. Maybe I got more and more aware of myself and started judging myself. Auditioning for college was actually super terrifying. I had spent so long pouring myself into those monologues that sometimes I felt lines were blurred that shouldn’t have been, especially my Shape of a Girl piece. I guess some people use those feelings to fuel their auditions. I just felt lackluster.
Cold reads were, actually, a lot less scary for me. I always thought there was something really fun about having a script in my hand and getting to, essentially, BS my way through text. It’s definitely scary as anything, but also sort of thrilling. Cold reading is something you learn in acting classes from the very start, obviously preparing us for this type of thing. It’s not an easy skill, but it’s a really good one to have and develop. There’s a good chance you’re not going to get through an audition without being able to do a cold read.
Auditions are definitely different for everyone. It’s the very nature of it all. And sometimes, even if you’re terrified or feel unprepared, it can work out. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s the life of an actor, and it’s a different experience for each actor out there. All in all, you want to make sure you’re showing exactly what you can bring to the table. Obviously, you want people to see that you’re the one they want in their show. As an actor, you’re going to be doing a lot of auditioning, so you have to be completely ready to be the one.
Personally, I’m pretty glad I’m done with auditioning. Like I said, it kind of got worse and worse as I got older. But it is nice to know I have that Harper monologue. You just never know.
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