I'm still waiting for the music director of the theatre company I'm
planning to audition for to return my call asking for clarification, but I
thought I'd ask here whether anyone else has ever come across this
particular audition policy:
The show is THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and typical of many musical theatre
audition notices, the ad for the audition states "no songs from the show".
No big deal there. But then the ad went on to read: "Music will be
supplied."
Now this DID seem somewhat odd. So I called the phone number in the ad,
and got the recording telling me that all people auditioning would be
expected to do so using music supplied by the theatre company. That is,
apparently, that one is expected to show up at audition and sing a song
that one may not know, i.e., to do a musical "cold reading".
I understand the possible motivation behind this - it's NOT that they want
to hear musical cold readings. It's that they have an accompanist with
very limited sight-reading abilities (and believe me - there are tons of
those out there) and/or a music director with very
limited imagination, who wants to hear candidates for particular roles
sing only a particular song (sort of like wanting all your potential
Toscas to sing "Vissi d'arte" - or, in this case, "Un bel di" - so you can
do an apples-to-apples comparison).
But if I'm wrong, and what they really want to do is judge performers
based on a musical "cold reading", I'm trying to imagine what the heck
such a display of sight-reading ability will possibly show a director
about the singer's capabilities?
Just wondered, is this approach to auditions as bizarre as it sounds to
me? Or is the fact that I've never come across this particular approach
before just an indication of my own limited experience?
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths.
- Proverbs 3:6
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