How I Audition (and Not Lose My Mind)
A Sort of Guidebook for How to Audition Without Going Crazy or Getting Sick
You prepare for an audition, go in, get super-nervous because you want the role so bad, and you do your best to get through without freezing like a deer in headlights. Then you find out you not only didn't get the role, you didn't even get a callback. You spiral into a depression because you poured your heart and soul into getting ready for that audition only for someone else to reject you. Not reject your work ... reject you.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, been there, done that, have the tee-shirt.
And then there's other times when I go in, throw caution to the wind, say, "F**k it, I'm doin' it live," and I get either the role I wanted or a better one. What the actual--
So-- ... okay wait. Not care?
Yep.
I'm told the universal law of attraction is that if you want something, stop wanting it. Basically. That's so simple it's almost wrong. But there's something to that when it comes to auditions, and I don't think it's so much spiritual as it is psychosomatic.
My best example is when I decided to audition for a local civic's production of A Few Good Men. I wanted the role of Jo Galloway so bad I could taste it, but the audition was like four months away and I had to get through the holidays slow down and enjoy celebrating with my family first. Then, tragedy struck ... my grama passed away. She rooted for me in the theater like no other. She herself was very involved in civic theater, so my grama was proud of me like no other. She passed away in January, and the audition was less than a month after her funeral. She was my last living grandparent, and the one I was closest to. Auditioning for a play seemed like a slap in the face of the grief I was feeling and to my family--especially my mom. It felt ... almost insulting to think of auditioning.
This was also the first time I'd tried to audition for anything for three years, and the last show I was in was four years prior to that (but that's another post). Trying to be in a play less than a month after my grandmother's funeral seemed less than tasteful.
My mom was the one that talked me into it. She said Grama would want nothing more than for me to keep doing theater because it was something we both shared, and she also wouldn't want me to stop my life. No no. That wouldn't do. Not this granddaughter.
So I read up on the script, dressed in a decent outfit, and decided that the chips would fall where they would and there was nothing I could do except my best. For Grama.
I was so subdued by my grief that I forgot to be nervous in the audition. I read the lines as I'd practiced them, I displayed what I could do, and when I left I felt as if I'd left everything out there on the stage and brought nothing back with me. I did my job. It was in someone else's hands now, and I had to focus on being there with my mom through her loss.
About a week later I got a text from the director offering me the role of Jo Galloway.
How--wait wh--are you serious???
Had I finally done it? Had I finally mastered the art of acting? Had all my training and education finally marinated enough that I could do it for real? What magic thing happened? What did I do this time that I hadn't done all the rest of the times???
Simple. I forgot to be nervous.
See when you want something so badly that you're laser-focused on it, you get tense, and everything suffers--from your voice to your concentration to your on-stage energy/chemistry to your actual biology. Cortisol and adrenaline wreak havoc on your system, fog your brain (sometimes), and cause you to put off an overall air of lack of confidence.
You know how certain animals can smell fear? Well directors can smell low confidence.
So I tried this method again. I tried a couple more auditions at that theater--both for the same director who for some reason didn't like me, and didn't get either one. I was p.o.'ed about it, but I was satisfied enough with my own auditions that I could say, "Fine, piss on ya, your loss." (We cope how we have to, am I right?) The point is that I didn't let it keep me from auditioning again, because by now I was in the flow of how to do my best and let the chips fall where they would. Doesn't mean I didn't eat my feelings for a day and fart in that director's general direction, but the next day I could always go find "something bigger and better than those piddly li'l projects" (again, we cope how we have to).
Rejection is loss. You're allowed to grieve.
A few months later, after attending to some income-generating work, I tried this "not giving a crap" method at a different theater for ANOTHER bucket-list role. Wanted this one worse than Jo Galloway ... Shelby Eatonton-Latcherie in Steel Magnolias. I'd wanted that role for ten years and had already been rejected/else-cast once. If I didn't get it this time, I'd be crushed, right?
But I remembered back to when I played Annelle in the same play ten years prior, and learned that the girl cast as Shelby reminded the director of his sister who'd just passed away, so I told myself, "Self, you don't know what's going on that isn't theater-related. You could be Julia Roberts herself and not get the role. Just do what you do, leave it all out there on the stage, bring nothing back with you, and let the chips fall where they will."
So I did.
And the director sat down beside me at callbacks and said, "You're my Shelby. Knew it when you walked up there. Take this script and wait to announce until I post the cast list."
Same principle as before. I focused on what I could control and I forgot to get tensed up.
Tried it again for a professional theater troupe. World premiere of a brand new adaptation of a classic. World. Premiere. No pressure, right?
Focused on my prep. Forgot to get tensed up.
Didn't get the role I wanted.
I got the %&+@~^! CO-LEAD!!!
It's not that I stopped wanting each of those roles. It's that I put my focus on what I had control of, which was my prep. Perform what you prep and you'll forget to be nervous.
So that's how to audition and not drive yourself crazy or get sick.
Goes for job interviews too. And first dates. And tests. And speeches.
Some people have a routine of stretches and/or quirky movements, or a special pair of underwear, or a specific smoothie the morning of. I'm here to tell you folks that will not help you worth $#!% when it comes to keeping from getting nervous. Prepare the work. Focus on the technique. That's where your security blanket is. That's what will draw your nervous energy and channel it into performance. Wear your lucky underwear if you must, but
perform what you practice and stop stressing about someone else's decision.
A word of wisdom to cap all this off: don't ever ... ever ever ever ... try to predict the outcome by the reactions of the director or anyone else in the audition room. I'll give two emotionally hobbling examples.
Sad story 1: I auditioned for an independent/student thesis film and I made all the right choices. I made the bold choice, the unlikely choice, the one that really evoked emotion from the other two people in the room. The director looked at me through the camera lens, sat back in his chair, and said, "That's it. That's her. That's 'Kelly.' You're my 'Kelly.' That was perfect." Imagine my shock and dismay, then, when I received a Facebook message later that evening telling me he was going with someone else for the part but would like me to be on the team as a production assistant (which wound up being a glorified coffee girl). Not to mention that the actress, a college freshman, froze up the day they were to film the love scene that we ALL knew was on the shot list, so guess who had to stand in for her unprofessionalism? Yup. Additionally, when she couldn't be at a shoot and the director (who was also the writer!) read her lines to feed to the other actor, he delivered them exactly the way I auditioned with them. That means that not only was I far more professional than she was, but I also understood the way he wrote the script and intended the lines to be delivered ... and I still got rejected. I still don't know what was up with that, but I learned first and foremost don't rely on what the director says unless he or she puts a script in your hand.
Sad story 2: Remember when I said I auditioned twice for the same director who for some reason refuses to cast me in anything? This is one of those times. It was an open-room audition, meaning everyone who was auditioning could watch each other and cheer each other on (most of us were friends).
It was for a musical, which for that theater meant two weekends. It was only a two-person cast, so the chief director (with whom I've worked several times since) decided to have one pair for one weekend and a second pair for the second weekend. The music director (the one that doesn't like me) agreed, so we knew going into auditions that two women and two men would be cast.
Based on auditions alone! we ALL knew who the four should have been, and, not to unfairly toot my own horn or anything but when I got done singing, the room cheered. The cast list came out, and only one of the four who gave professional-caliber auditions made the cut--the same man for both weekends, and two college-age girls who gave two of the four weakest auditions of the day.
We were ALL shocked, most of us dismayed, and even the leading man strongly considered not taking the role because of how it all went down.
And so, on top of not trusting what the director might say in the audition room, I learned that day don't trust "the people's choice" as a barometer for how casting will eventually go.
(P.S., just to further illustrate how important it is to only focus on your own actions and performance, one of the girls who got cast was best college friend to the music director, and the second was the daughter of one of the town trustees at the time. So not only did social politics play a role in that decision, but actual politics played a role too, and friends I'm here to tell you there ain't $#!% you can do about that. Unfair and unjust though it is, it happens. Rise above it. Be better than those people.)
So there you have it: stories, advice, and cautionary tales. How to Audition Without Going Crazy or Getting Sick. I hope this helps, and I hope one day the entertainment industry will be based on merit, talent, and personability, not politics of any sort.
So.
For better or for worse, for rejection or for curtain call ...
on to the next.