So,
learn a new audition piece already!!
For an actor, auditioning is a way of life. We peruse the various web sites that list auditions, read the newspaper, keep in touch with the casting agencies and/or listen to the recorded AEA or AC Hotlines, or check them out online, to see what possible jobs are out there for us. Sometimes an audition requires cold readings from sides provided by the producer, but most often our quest for a job will begin with a monologue. And while many more of our local theatres are holding open calls for their individual seasons or even for an individual show, here in the Washington DC/Baltimore/Northern Virginia market, one is apt to be performing a monologue for roughly the same group of auditors – at the AEA-Only Auditions run by our local AEA liaison committee each winter, at the League of Washington Theatres (LOWT) Auditions in the summer, or at the Annual Actors’ Center Lottery Auditions in November, the three big calls that happen each year here in the DC area. Are you still doing the same piece you’ve done for the last five years? Maybe that’s not such a good idea.
How many monologues do you have ready to whip out at a moment’s notice? When was the last time you learned a new piece? A wonderful acting teacher of mine once told me that an actor should have at least a half dozen, if not more, audition pieces ready to perform with only an hour or two of brush up ‘rehearsal’ for a given piece before performing it at an audition: A serious classical piece, a comic classical, contemporary comic and serious, and a couple more pieces that contrast with the basic four, like spokes around an emotional wheel, as it were, each designed to show off the various tricks in your ‘old kit bag’. She said that having six was actually more lenient advice than her acting teacher had given the class when she was in acting school: That teacher had advocated knowing twelve audition pieces – one for each point around that emotional/stylistic clock. And, it went without saying, these monologues needed to be exchanged for new ones in each category as the actor grew as a performer and aged out of the ingenue category, for example, and into older age brackets.
When the actors in my class (including me!) expressed shock at the idea of learning and keeping fresh that many monologues, our teacher pointed out that opera singers in training routinely learn whole roles just for the learning experience and the discipline of it. She was only suggesting we learn several monologues no longer than a couple of minutes each. Weren’t we actors. Didn’t we want to act?! Couldn’t we take the time out from our busy schedules? (Most of us were definitely not in shows at the time.) Hmmmmmmm.
Now, I confess freely that I have never had the more than six pieces that she suggested at my disposal at a given time. I’m no sanctimonious acting genius. But I did take her advice and her gentle admonishments to heart. I do have a handful of monologues now (and have had for some years) that I can brush up quickly for an open call, a private audition for a specific role at a specific theatre, or for an EPA (Equity Principal Audition). And I’ve tossed out those old ingenue monologues and long ago replaced them with mom roles and other grown-up characters. I am always on the lookout for new material, not always from plays, either. A good monologue can come from many sources; look at fiction, non-fiction, whatever strikes your fancy. Almost anything can be adapted with a little forethought and careful editing. (I would just avoid writing your own material, unless you are a proven and confident writer.) When I see something I’d like to use as a monologue, I type it as a Word document and save it on my computer, where I have a special ‘Monologues’ folder. I learn things slowly sometimes, in case I might need them, and I never totally get rid of anything from my file. It might come in handy some day! When I have an audition coming up, I can go to my ‘Monologues’ folder first to see if something already under my belt will fit the requirements of the audition I’m preparing for. If not, then I tear all the plays off my book shelves and start madly hunting for something new.
Another piece of advice that I’ve always remembered was something that an Arena Stage casting director once said to me in connection with the annual LOWT auditions. She expressed surprise that so many actors did the same “tired old piece” year after year. “Why,” she asked me, “can’t they learn a new couple of minutes of something different? Do they think I don’t remember them from last year? Well, I do, and from the year before that, too. And it makes me think they don’t care about getting hired, if they can’t at least learn a new monologue every once in a while!” Sort of dovetails with my teacher’s advice if you think about it. Take the time to showcase your talent well at each audition, and you’ll get noticed and remembered – in a good way.
That doesn’t mean you can’t recycle a monologue when an audition comes up at the last minute, or when you’re crazy busy and just plain haven’t the time to learn something new and untried. Life does intervene, after all, and there are only so many hours in a day. My old favorites have saved my bacon many a time – after all, when I know I do a piece well, and it has led to a job in the past, why on earth would I ditch it completely?! If it ain’t broke, as they say….That same teacher who suggested learning/having six monologues ready to go also said that as you’re about to walk through the door into the audition chamber, if you have serious doubts about the (new) piece you’re about to do, chuck it out the window and do your favorite piece for them, the one that never fails you!! I do, however, always try to keep in mind which director or casting director has seen me perform which monologue(s) from my little kit bag, and if I can, I mix it up, so that I do something new for them if I possibly can.
(By the way, always do a new monologue for someone before the audition. Never let the audition itself be the first time you perform for someone other than your bathroom mirror – that’s putting yourself under way more pressure than need be. If you can’t perform your piece for a teacher or a monologue coach, do it for a fellow actor, or for your kids or your husband, your mom or your best friend. My own husband gives me great notes when I do monologues for him!)
Well, I hope
the foregoing ramble inspires you to go hunting for at
least one
new piece to add to your repertoire.
Think about that role you’ve always wanted to play, or maybe a
character
from a novel you read recently that keeps popping into your head – you
know,
the one whose dialog you can hear
vividly in your ‘mind’s ear’. Type it up
and learn it. What have you got to lose?