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Written by Jenean Bugiada
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Greetings Folks:
As many of you know, I live in the Los Angeles area. Last night I went to a seminar where they had one of the top casting director's (C.D.) for theatre and musical theatre in L.A. speak. He was really interesting. Here is some of the advice he gave.
1. BE ON TIME. Respect the people auditioning and your fellow actors by being on time. Be early. He mentioned this many times - he was not the 1st C.D. I've heard say this. Really important.
2. If you put a song in your book - know the whole thing. You never know if they might ask you to sing it again and from the beginning. So don't just learn 16 bars. If you can't sing the whole thing, don't put it in your book. The director might say to you, do you have another song and when the pianist thumbs through your book and just picks something, you don't want to say that I haven't sung that for awhile or I don't know all of it.
3. Dont sing ANYTHING from "Rent". Everyone (all the C.D.'s in town) are sick of the music. Soprano's don't sing "Ice Cream" from "She Loves Me".
4. Have your music marked when you get to the the piano so you don't have to spend too much time explaining how you sing something.
5. Always have a legit song, a belt song, a pop/rock song in your key ready to go.
6. Have your music in the correct key. If you really like a song but it has a note that is too high, have the song transposed down to your key. As long as it is written out, they don't care. They just want you to do your best. So if you can belt the whole song except the climax at the end where you have to switch in to your head voice - that ruins the whole song. Fix it so that you sound good for that last note!!!!!!
7. Have 2 contrasting monologues always ready to go that you do well. If you do classical theatre, have a classical one.
8. Make sure your contrasting monologues are from established plays. Do not do material from monologue books at auditions.
9. The monologues should not be long. Stick to the time limit of 1 or 2 minutes each unless requested otherwise. Again, he talked about respecting time limits. He was a stickler about time and staying on schedule. Do not go over your time limit.
10. Do not do monologues that you write yourself for an audition. Something about us being poor judges of ourselves. He says it never works.
11. Always read the ENTIRE play, if it is published, before you audition. Be prepared. Almost all musicals are published these days.
12. Have all your tools and be ready to go!
13. Never apologize for your work. If something didn't go well, and by some miracle you get a 2nd chance, make sure to do it differently or change it. Don't make it a zerox copy of what you just did. Be different the 2nd time around. It always makes C.D.'s angry if they let you try something a 2nd time and you do it exactly the same way you did it the 1st time. I've heard many C.D.'s say this.
14. On resumes they always look at your training and background. Training in acting is very important and gives you an edge. Also, they look to see who and where you've worked in the past.
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