19/03/2016
AUDITION TIPS!
Here are some behavioral tips for audition situations that might help you have a better chance of booking an acting job:
1. Be prepared! If you have lines to learn, learn them BEFORE you get there. If you have questions about the text or the characters, the fact that you couldn't figure it out or didn't really understand won't be of interest to anyone in the audition. Figure it out and get prepared!
2. Get there early. This will first and foremost, help you feel relaxed when you go into the audition.
3. Take a change of clothes for the acting audition if need be. If it's hot outside for example and you know you will be sweating, take the clothes with you in a suitcase that you want to wear in the acting audition. Get there early and change, put your make up on or whatever and give yourself enough time to do so.
4. Stay out of the chit chat in the waiting room. There will be other actors in the waiting room who want to talk. Stay out of the chit chat and stay focused on what you need to do. You can talk later.
5. Sign in when you are ready for your acting audition and not before! When you walk into the casting office, there will usually either be a sign-up list or maybe even someone taking names of actors who have arrived. First get there, be calm, change clothes, comb your hair, check your make-up if you need to and then see if there are any sides or if there is any commercial copy to learn.
6. Only once you have learned your copy and feel comfortable with it, then sign in. This is another reason to get there early! Of course you must sign in before your call time. Remember that once you sign in, what you are telling them is that you are ready to go into the audition room. If you're not ready yet, then don't sign in!
7. Leave your stuff outside the audition room. Take as few things into the audition room with you as necessary. Don't take your coat, your suitcase, your bag and all your junk with you. Leave the coat and the suitcase outside the audition room. Take only your headshot and resume (stapled together). Anything else you feel you must take with you, leave it right inside the door as you walk in and do that as quickly as possible. The casting director you will be seeing, doesn't have time to wait for you to get your stuff situated. Move calmly, but quickly and give them your attention.
8. No idle chit chat with the casting director. They're busy and don't want to know how you are doing, how your day is and what you've been up to, nor do they want to answer questions like that about themselves. So don't ask. You are there to audition. Be polite, but also be conscious of why you are there.
9. Don't offer to shake hands. Many casting directors don't like that either.
10. Don't ask them when they will make a decision or when they will get back to you. For some parts or acting jobs, they may see more than a hundred actors. Imagine if they all asked that question, which brings me to my last point.
A casting director Marci Phillips once said in a class I did with her, "When you walk out of the audition room after the audition, forget about it and move on". Why did she say that? Because the casting director will only call you if they want to see you again. If they don't want to see you again, you will never hear from them again. So don't sit around the phone and wait and put all your eggs in one basket. Move on with your acting career and with your life. If they want you, they will call. Also realize that it doesn't necessarily have to do with how well or poorly you did in your acting audition. You just might not be what they are looking for at that particular time. So don't sweat it.
ALL THE BEST.
