What happens at an audition?
An audition is an opportunity for you to showcase the best of your talents as an actor, singer and dancer. In an audition you are asked to complete a few short tasks which will help you to show off everything you can do and will help the director and creative team behind the show choose the performer who is best suited for each role.
Your audition will take place in the music room at school. When you arrive at your audition you should wait patiently outside the audition room. When they are ready a member of the audition panel will welcome you in. If a parent / carer is with you they will need to wait outside the audition room until your audition is over.
You will be asked to introduce yourself, so let the audition panel know your name, your class and which role you will be auditioning for. At this point, you might be asked one or two other questions such as ‘Why have you chosen this character?’ or ‘What is it you like about this character?’ so it can help to have thought about this beforehand.
After this you will be asked to act out your chosen monologue. Take a moment to compose yourself before you begin and remember that it is absolutely fine to correct any mistakes or start again if you feel you need to at any point. We expect that you will have memorised your monologue and will not need to use your script, but we will give you your lines if you forget. We want to see you really act, so think about how you can use your voice, your facial expression and your movements to tell the story in your monologue.
In some cases a member of the panel might ask you to try something again slightly differently (such as acting out a line as if you’re telling someone off, or acting out a line as if you’re feeling scared). We are interested in seeing how you respond to direction. Don’t worry, just give it your best!
After this you will be asked to sing a section from a song. We are interested in hearing your singing voice and how well you can listen to the music to match the rhythm and pitch of the song, so be sure to practise along with both the guide vocal track and performance accompaniment track. If you would like to use a lyric sheet, that is fine. Just as with the monologue, remember that you are acting when you sing the song, so think about how you can use your facial expressions and movement when you sing to really stand out.
Finally, there will be a short choreography and movement task. You do not have to prepare anything for this task. A member of the panel will teach you a short sequence of steps to a simple dance from the show. We will dance it together and if you are feeling confident, you will have the opportunity to have a go at repeating it by yourself.
Before you go, take a moment to reflect on what an amazingly brave thing you have done. The panel will celebrate how brilliantly you have auditioned. However you feel your audition went, remember that there are lots of other auditionees and in most cases someone else will get the part you have been practising hard for.
Break a leg!
