I recently had two auditions with the same casting office for a national TV show. Both were for parts that were not one or two liners, but had more substance to them. The two auditions could not have been more diverse, and again, I had a valuable lesson for actors driven home to me.
For the first audition, I worked many hours (I had not quite a week's notice), then did an hour Skype session with my acting coach in Hollywood on the role, and then followed that up with many more hours of preparation. I should have been well prepared for the audition, right? Oh I was and then some. I was so prepared that I was tight as a drum, and did the worst audition I have ever done for that casting office. In fact, it was probably the worst audition I have done in several years.
A few weeks later they had me back to audition for another role. This time I had less than 24 hours notice. I worked for about a hour and a half, felt I knew the part well, and took off for the audition. At the audition, I was loose, having fun and the audition went quite well. It was in fact the best audition I have ever done for that casting office. Did I get cast? No, I did not. However, I learned long ago that there are many layers of reasons why an actor does or does not get cast in a particular role. All the actor can do is control how he or she handles the audition. All the other parameters such as you don't look like what we had in mind, you're too short, too tall, too heavy, too thin, too old, too young, and all the rest are out of your hands. If you can walk away from an audition knowing you did a good job, that is the best you can ask for, and I left that audition feeling quite good about it.
The lesson learned? Too little preparation for an audition is a recipe for disaster, but so is too much preparation, which is exactly what I did for the first audition. To use a phrase from my professional music days, I left my best performance on the rehearsal room floor.
A few weeks ago the Seattle Theater Readers did a staged reading of one of my shot film screenplays, at a theater in Seattle as part of their monthly program. They did an excellent job and it was great fun to watch and hear. They will be doing two more of my short film screenplays this coming Fall.
I have now completed the organization and setup for designing and producing demo reels and and/or websites for actors. Pardon the thinly disguised commercial (or perhaps not disguised at all), but should you know anyone who might benefit from such services, they can contact me at afareelsandweb@gmail.com for a free fact sheet via email, containing info, references, fee schedules, etc.
Thanks for reading and I'll talk with you later..............
