How to prepare for an Audition

Painless audition

Everyone hates auditions. Everyone. Actors hate doing them. directors and producers hate holding them. No one in the theater enjoys the audition process. It is stressful, uncertain, time consuming, and uncomfortable for everyone involved. But it is also the only way that actually works.

As an actor, there are some things you can do to make the process easier on yourself, and that ultimately will make you a more professional prospect to an auditing director or producer. Some of this may sound obvious, but you know what? You would be surprised. The following tips are meant in the context of the general (sometimes referred to as "cattle call") theater audition.

Prepare your audition pieces. Rehearse them as you would rehearse a play. Work on them with a coach, director or other knowledgeable colleague. Be as confident with the piece as you would a role you were performing. Work on them outside of the context of an upcoming audition. Work on them in front of people.

Don't wait until the night before your audition to search for, memorize and rehearse an audition piece!

Finding the perfect audition piece is probably the most difficult task of all. Take the time to find a piece that speaks to you; that you like and identify with. Search audition books (see #5 below), ask fellow actors and directors their opinions, if you have any playwright friends ask them if they have anything you might use! Gather two to five possibilities and ask friends and colleagues what they think.

The piece you pick should be a character you would actually have a chance being cast as. As a twenty year old female actor, showing the auditors that you can play an 80 year old man isn't going to help them in most cases.

Pick monologues from plays. It is perfectly okay to use a new play or something the auditors have not heard before, but pick a piece from an actual play and read the play in its entirety, not just the scene or the monologue.

When rehearsing your piece, make one to three clear, distinct acting choices and commit to them fully. When in doubt, simplify.

Keep the blocking in your piece simple as well. Choose one to three clear, precise movements or crosses. When in doubt, simplify.

Show the auditors what they ask for. If they ask for two monologue pieces and a song, prepare that. If they ask for two contrasting pieces, that means they want one contemporary piece and one classical, one of which is serious and the other funny. Classical pieces generally mean language verse pieces- Shakespeare or his contemporaries, The Greeks, Moliere or the like. When using a translated piece like Moliere, make sure the translations are in verse as well. The auditors want to see how you handle poetic and metered language.

If the auditors give you a choice of presenting one or two pieces, choose to do one and do the funny one. Give that one piece the same amount of preparation you would give two pieces.