Art of Acting 1 - Auditions

As we head in to the Christmas period up and down the land various groups are now preparing to enter "pantomime season" where pretty much every actor up and down this land is preparing to engage "over the top enthusiasim mode" and shouting "Oh no you're not!" over and over again. For a long period I hold my hands up to snubbing panto (Me to play buttons? I'm a serious bloody Shakesperian ac-tour) but after my bid to direct and produce a Hallowe'en performance of "The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" fell flat I had a Christmas free and went for it. Personally I've never looked back and I'll do it again. The thing is, when auditioning you find no matter where it is and whom the production is directed by we have a similar procedure.


LIMPETS - Of course, the first thing that happens is that the prospective actors arrive and begin sizing eachother up as potential rivals. The obligatory overtly camp lad no doubt intends to be the butler/servant, a few middle age men are generally going to be fighting over the dame/villain of the piece and roughly 3,971 teenage girls are going to fight it out for the roles of "good fairy" and "pretty love interest". Occasionally one of them will find herself heartbroken in lead male since "well, she looks kind of masculine". Around this, every group has "the regulars", people who come back year and year again who're a little harder to judge ("Do I REALLY want to be the dame 4th year running?") these become the limpets, clinging to those they know.


You see, usually you see groups come in and they're all cuddly and happy and you know they're rooting for eachother. Limpets will inevitably have next to nothing to do with eachother during the run but for now, you're best friends for life. That snooty biatch over there is competition and a limpet will find a corner with fellow limpets and plan their downfall. Hopefully they will read opposite them and make them look REALLY bad but the limpets will often do all they can to make sure their little play thing doesn't get harmed by "outsiders". Shakespeare once wrote "Hell hath no fury like a limpet scorned", a limpet without a role WILL become full of rage and hellfire and begin smeer campaigns on facebook.


READINGS - Once we've gone through the meet and greets and introduced eachother (queue limpets highlighting their years of service) we find ourselves given the roles that the director sees us based on initial appearence and the "I would likes...." almost immediately someone will find him/herself deflated as they're given the complete and utter opposite type of roles to read on. They will find themselves looking like thunder for the rest of the afternoon. Inevitably though people only really get one chance, JUST ONCE CHANCE [/William Wallace] to show what we're capable of. This often ends up with the interesting image of seeing someone trying to show versatility and going through a nice little geographic tour of accents they can do (most end up sounding Indian...)


Sometimes, seeing the script is enough to put people off the role they invisioned themselves/write themselves off in the view of the director (memories of the Zimbabwean Romeo who could barely speak a word of English come flooding back), after this people are well and truly deflated or starting to get confident on their part/sabotaging of the "outsiders" chances.


STUPID MOVEMENTS - It doesn't matter what you're auditioning for, there WILL be a stupid movement session. So many directors like to sit there and watch the way you move. Sometimes this is understandable and in the guise of a quick choreography session where a group of people who're unsure dancers look uncomfortable (female limpets will scowl at the pretty young rivals who appear like professional dancers compared to their flat footed shenanigans) but at least one can understand why. I've never understood why this is required while auditioning for King Leer though.


WAITING GAME - Ultimately, that's it with an audition. Stupid movements will often also cover a little bit of "singing" but by now we've gauged those who're musically aware and whom looked out of their depth so it doesn't offer much except for the remaining 1,573 "pretties" in the event of a tie. Nope you get the waiting game instead. "Thanks for coming, we'll be in touch" this normally has a disclaimer along the lines of "just because you don't hear when your friends do it doesn't mean you're not in". This is a lie, it means you're not in but it gives everyone the butterflies waiting by the phone.


Normally at this stage we thespians begin analysing ourselves and rapidly fall out of love with the audition and aren't too hopeful overall. Some however will be bought to Earth with a bang (most of the limpets in the event of a larger audition) after being convinced they're deities gift to acting. Most will be disapointed and while some will protest and boycott the group, most actors should use this to spur them on. It's still a nice feeling to get that call and get YOUR role (trying to calmly say "yes I will accept X" as your jaw drops is nigh impossible!) but nobody walks into any role and if you're a good, versatile actor you'll still get a decent role. This week I had a bad audition and came out unhappy. I've not got the role I wanted but looking at the script and knowing me I can make it work, anyway, what's the point of playing the same old roles all the time? I personally, am now relishing the role of "Mr Bod" even if he was nowhere near my radar at the audition. Bring on rehearsals!