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From:  "Jennifer" <jennibri@i...>
Date:  Fri Aug 18, 2000  2:40 am
Subject:  RE: Post-audition etiquette/Results


Thank you to everyone who responded. I finally got a call yesterday and I
got a part! Considering it was my first audition and there was lots of
competition I'm quite excited. I also spoke with the director at length
about my audition in particular and auditions in general and learned several
interesting things, which I'm going to try to generalize below (I should
mention that I knew the director already - not sure I would have had such an
in-depth conversation with a stranger :o). Please note that we were talking
about what he was looking for, but I suspect from what I've heard other
people say about auditions that he's not unique.

1) Be nice to everyone, both inside and outside the audition room. This
director spoke with the reception people after the auditions to find out how
people had behaved. His rationale was that if he was going to be working
with people for 3 months, he'd prefer them to be nice. I don't blame him!
And while this wasn't necessarily a deciding factor in this instance, I'm
sure if he'd been trying to decide between two people who would be equally
good for a role, it could have made a difference.

2) Ask in advance what they are looking for, including song suggestions and
role characteristics. In a case where there are many people auditioning, and
there are a number with quite a bit of talent, the director (or whoever's in
charge of auditions) will probably pick the ones who most closely match
their image of the characters.

3) When doing a cold reading, more acting is better than less. ie, just
reading the lines with a bit of vocal inflection isn't going to get you as
far as actually trying to do a characterization. This was my first
experience with cold reading and I have to admit I was a little too shocked
to do much of anything (as in they handed me the script, gave me a ten
second verbal description of the character, and immediately launched into
the dialogue).

4) Don't take it personally. If you don't get cast, it doesn't necessarily
mean you weren't good, it could just mean that you didn't fit the image of
what they were looking for (see #2).

5) It never hurts to ask for feedback :o).

Jennifer


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