Freehold's Auditioning class gives students an opportunity to work on contemporary and/or classical monologues, to learn about audition-specific acting techniques and also to gain real world auditioning experience by participating in mock auditions with several (surprise!) guest directors from the regional theatre community. More information on our upcoming Winter Auditioning class can be found here.
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Auditioning for a play? Sounds like fun, right? Not for most
of us. For me, thinking about an audition brings up many flavors of fear,
insecurity, trepidation, etc. I took
Christine Marie Brown’s Auditioning class at Freehold this fall in hopes of
confronting those fears, learning more about what an audition is, and developing
some tools for preparing and performing the audition.
I found the class to be made up of both experienced actors,
with long performance resumes, as well as others like myself, who have little
experience in the audition room. It was comforting to know that the process can
be intimidating and a challenge regardless of your experience. Christine
brought in her years of expertise and first-hand knowledge of what goes on during
an audition. We practiced our audition pieces (contemporary monologues) in
front of the class. The feedback was supportive and informative. Through repetition, we could feel the
progress in ourselves and witness the growth in our classmates. Already the
idea of auditioning was becoming less intimidating.
Christine coached us in all elements of the process in class
as well as in a private session: selection of a piece, preparation, warm up,
the waiting room, acting choices, dress, resume, headshots, entering the room,
presentation of your piece, and exiting the room. We talked about auditioning in Seattle in
particular – what casting directors expect, and how to prepare for different
situations. We even explored what can go wrong in an audition, and how to cope
when things don’t go according to plan. She held a mock audition in which she
played the part of the auditor, and gave us a chance to work in a realistic
scenario.
Once we had a chance to hone our audition pieces, Christine
set up different audition scenarios with guest casting directors. In addition to our monologues, we worked on a
musical theater audition piece and did a call back audition, reading one side
of dialogue from a play. These sessions were enormously helpful; we got to
practice our craft in front of some of the same auditors we’d see in the
Seattle theaters, and get their feedback and suggestions. Following these in-class auditions, we had
great discussions with the artists about how casting works in their theaters,
and what they look for in the audition room.
These sessions were instrumental in demystifying the whole
audition process and
before we could really think about it, we were all
auditioning. In fact we were EXPERIENCED
“audition-ers.” There was an element of “just do it” that worked in our favor.
By turning our focus from all the things that could go wrong, and directing it
toward the work itself, dare I say, auditioning became fun. Who would of
thought?
One of Christine’s many bits of advice that helped me to
take the teeth of out the audition experience: think of yourself as the host
when you walk into the audition room. The auditors are your guests – they are
here to enjoy themselves and are looking forward to seeing you. Make them feel
comfortable, put them at ease.
Really the class, in a nutshell, did precisely that for me.
It helped put me at ease, made me feel like I hold something valuable,
something that needs to be shared, and that an audition is a great opportunity
to share it.
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