Acting auditions are traditionally nerve-wracking experiences for actors: they shouldn’t be, and they won’t be for you, if you are clear about what you are doing.
If you go to open acting auditions, you may be expected to offer two pieces to recite (from memory). Why two? So that your audition panel can see you in contrasting modes. If you are set a piece of text or script to read – the ‘cold’ reading – then you may be offered the chance to read it again. Why? Because it is a way that people can see how imaginative you can be with the text in front of you. This means that you must train yourself to analyse critically a piece of script, and to think imaginatively about the characterisation.
There is no mystique to this. When an actor, discussing his character, asked, ‘What’s my motivation?’ Hitchcock famously replied, ‘Your salary’. You have a technical gift as an actor, which is to realise the person in the words on the page. It is like your other technical accomplishments (how you work your voice or your body), but it is just that: technical. Keep hold of that, and many of the terrors of acting auditions simply evaporate.
Another tip: turn up early to audition. Why? Because it’s a practical way of keeping you calm and helping you give of your best.
Here at Audition Now we help you by texting the latest audition opportunities direct to your mobile phone.
Tags: acting auditions, casting calls, open acting auditions, SMS auditions service