Student Blog: To Audition or not to Audition, that is the question.

If you cringed at the word “audition”, don’t worry, we all do it. Every single one of my actor friends dreads auditions and if you tell me you look forward to them, you don’t have to lie, this is a safe place. :) In all seriousness, auditions are nerve wracking from trying to pick the right monologue, to the studio already running 30 minutes behind schedule because, well, they are theater people, to waiting on the answer that could just be a no in the form of ghosting (subject for another blog because what is up with the ghosting?!?!).  

Since coming to college I have become aware of how my high school theater experience left me woefully unprepared for the hardest part of auditions: rejection. Rejection is THE topic in every theater discussion and understandably so. Who enjoys being told “no, you aren’t what we’re looking for”? My entire precollege theater experience was with the same company which was a no-cuts program. Many small high schools have this rule to encourage maximum participation and it allows for many students without previous experience to learn or to just have fun putting on a funky costume and dancing around. This meant that the most ‘rejection’ I felt was getting the plot B lead instead of plot A my senior year. Of course to high school me this felt like the biggest tragedy in the world (how dare I not succeed 24/7!) but looking back, I wish I had been Tree #2. 

I don’t say all this to bemoan my high school theater experience: I loved my program and wouldn’t be pursuing a theater major without it. I do share this because it is so hard to go from a no rejection environment to one ripe with it in one fell swoop and I see it in the freshmen this year. We had a record low number of auditions for our mainstage shows and every time I asked the freshmen in my classes why, they all said some variation of “well, I need more practice before I audition for those shows.” I understand their hesitation because auditioning can feel impossible, especially when you’re already dealing with the changes of a new school with new friends and possibly even a new city. It felt impossible for me my freshman year fall but something made me sign up anyway. I then auditioned again in the spring. Then again this fall. And I will be auditioning again come spring. 

You may be wondering, Natalie, why are you auditioning so much when you just talked about how much you hate auditioning? Great question. It’s actually the fact that I hate auditioning which is what makes me audition. No matter if I was cast or not, every audition was awful, yes, but so useful. I had an acting teacher last fall for my Acting I class that told me I should treat every audition as just another opportunity to act. Then I had another acting teacher this fall that told me that my acting “wasn’t precious” so I should stop “acting like it is.” These are both two very different ways to say care less. This didn’t mean that I needed to put in less effort or less passion, it meant that I needed to shift the way that I thought of auditions from a place of critical evaluation and high stress to the way I view any theater place. For me, theater has always been a space where I can be myself and make the crazy out there choices so why can’t auditions be like that? Yes, of course you need decorum and you need to still go through the classic cycle of prepping,waiting, slating, waiting etc. but you can find your pockets of you in the whole process. I do this in little ways by wearing an outfit I’m comfortable in, not just one that fits whatever character you’re going in for. I do this by smiling as much as I want during notes because who cares if they think I’m too smiley as myself, I’m just giving them a view of what I will be like in rehearsal. 

Auditions are scary and will most likely stay scary. I’m not saying you can magically shift your perspective and you’ll suddenly fall in love with auditioning and skip your way into that studio. What I’m saying is yes, go to the audition. Who cares if you walk in and instantly trip over your feet? Who cares if you mess up every other word and barely get through the monologue? Who cares if you give an oscar worthy performance and they give the role to someone else? It is only one audition in a sea of auditions. You can’t lose anything, you can only gain experience and confidence. Go to that audition. Go to that audition and mess up so beautifully that you’ll have a perfect story to tell your roommates when you get home. Just do it. Why not?

  ~ Natalie