No Direction

Readers of my blog will know that there are many things I do like. If something falls outside the loved ones, crisps and Community circle then it’s probably safe to say that I’ll have something bad to say about it. So, you can probably guess what my thoughts are on monologues and what I want to do to people who dare ask me to prepare them for an audition.

If you’ve ever been or have attempted to attend a drama school then you will have encountered a monologue. Chances are you’ve spent hours, days, weeks scouring plays in the vain hope of finding a bit of speech that’s more than a few lines long that you could potentially perform to a panel of strangers. Once you find that said chunk of text, you then have to check that the character is of the same sex and preferably of a similar age. You then have to make sure that it’s not everyone else’s monologue of choice and once all those boxes have been ticked, you’re good to go. Time to get pacing around your bedroom and desperately learning someone else’s out of context words.

I understand why people ask you to prepare monologues as it gives them a chance to see you perform a decent amount of script and also lets them see how good you are at interpreting a piece of text. But really what it ends up being is an exercise in memorising a piece of text, working on it manically and getting just a few lines to a good enough standard to perform. It doesn’t show how well you work with other actors, how well you take direction or if you’re capable of natural-looking dialogue. So, you can imagine my annoyance when I was asked to prepare not one but two whole monologues for an audition.

Now, I find the times I actually get asked to perform a speech at an audition has dwindled as much as my ability to fight a hangover. I have a couple that I can whip out at a moment’s notice but they’re used so rarely that even they have become pretty dusty. But this casting had specifics. They had to be from specific plays so I was then faced with the frankly rather dull task of reading two plays that I’m not particularly keen on to find myself two whole new speeches to learn. They, of course, had to be contrasting in tone and finally, despite neither play having particularly wonderful female characters, I found my speeches. So the last few days has been spent preparing them so that they were ready for their great unveiling today.

I got to the audition to see a man in the waiting room refusing to leave until the casting director took his CV. It got to the point where he actually put it in her hand and in the end she gave in and asked him to come back later where they’d squeeze him in for an audition. He skipped out calling everyone ‘diamond’ and I scowled. A lot. Soon after I went in and after a brief chat, I was asked to perform my monologues. Did the first one, went ok. Had a ‘that was nice’ from the director. I stood and waited, expecting to be directed because that’s what normally happens. ‘So, can we see your next speech please?’ Oh ok. Obviously they’re going to see both and then work on one of them. I do the second one which is greeted with, ‘Well that was nice.’ Nice? Lovely and nice? You’d use more descriptive words for a blank piece of paper. So I stood again, waiting for my direction. Nope. Nothing. I was thanked for coming in and that was it. Time to be released back into the world. Not even giving a bit of direction and asking directors to at least try the speech again is really lazy. They have no idea how well, or poorly, I take direction. For all they know, I might enter a screaming fit of diva rage the second someone asks me to think about the emotions of the piece. 

So I’m back in the land of no upcoming auditions with a couple of unwanted monologues still aimlessly wandering around my brain. If anyone wants them then they’re yours for a cup of tea and a Wagon Wheel.

Secret Agent

When at drama school, the talk for most of the three years based around getting an agent. When you're training, you think it's the most important thing since they sliced bread and they realised they could make much money out of it. Being agentless seemed like the worst thing on Earth. Those who didn't get interest in the third year were pitied and whispered about. Gossip spread backstage behind curtains and was discussed in dressing room mirrors. How could they possibly work without someone being in charge of their careers? Surely their three years had been spent in vain and they would just be aimlessly wandering the streets, their character shoes worn through and their copy of Contacts in tatters.

Of course, I've since learnt that not having an agent isn't the worst thing in the world. I had sadly pitched up in the 'any agent is better than no agent' camp when I left and therefore signed up with the first one that was interested. Had someone warned me that they would go months without getting in touch, that they'd shout at me when I wasn't available to go to a casting with an hour's notice and that they'd repeatedly put me up for the part of an extra then I'd have run for the hills. I'd have never gone to the meeting where we discussed my bra size for far too long and instead I'd have run off with my awful headshot in one hand (it caused someone to liken me to a pigeon) and my desperately sparse CV in the other. My agent was terrible. He had the thickest Northern Irish accent that the world will ever know which meant I repeatedly misheard what I was going up for. He never listened when I said I didn't want to be an extra and over the course of three years, he managed to secure me two jobs. Nearly all the work I did was found by myself so he was basically pointless. The day we finally parted ways was more joyous than you can imagine.

I've always been quite happy finding my own work. I can be completely in control of what I do and I know that I won't have an audition suddenly sprung upon me. However, my desire to spend my life doing student films is low and that means finding someone who can give you a leg up so you can struggle up to the next rung of this very slippery ladder. So, today I went for a meeting with an agency. And bloody lovely they were too. The journey there was far from perfect and went along in normal Miss L fashion. I was first nearly killed by a falling suitcase at Highgate station. Then, around the corner from the office, I was forced to make the choice of running under a cascade of water due to industrial window-cleaning or to dash out in front of constant speeding buses and lorries (the option to the cross the road was also present but we'll ignore that one.) Once I safely arrived at the office we had a 10-15 minute chat about what I was looking to do and what they could offer, I performed a monologue (this was my modern speech as requested, I didn't just suddenly launch into a lecture on the rights of women in the 1800s) and then we parted ways. I now have to wait until Monday to hear whether they're still interested which will mean I can basically write-off Monday as I spend every other second checking my phone, email and making sure that they work.

I came away from the meeting suddenly feeling very positive about having someone to look after me a little bit. The idea of being completely independent and in control of your career is a lovely notion but having someone to hold your hand as they deal with the big kids in the playground is a far nicer prospect. Hopefully my hand won't be empty for too much longer.

Mind Readers

Actors are mind readers. This is apparently a universal fact that is widely known throughout the acting community. It's just a shame that no one bothered to tell us. Of course, no one thought they needed to because we should've picked it up from someone else's thoughts already. Stupid us.

Sorry. You're probably all a bit worried by my pessimistic opening when my blogs are usually so upbeat and cheery (quiet you.) But today was a day of 'Bad Audition.' These come round every so often and are as inevitable as chuggers on a high street. But today's audition wasn't awful because I messed up my lines. I wasn't running late and I didn't fall over when entering the audition room (you know the drill by now...all of these things have happened before.) No. It was bad because I wasn't the mind reader that they thought I was. Apparently I was supposed to know the whole script, the complete breakdown of the character that I was up for and also the full rehearsal schedule. I mean, they only sent me four very vague sentences to learn so really I have no excuse. Slap my wrists and call me useless.

To be honest, I didn't really get off to the best start. Despite the waiting room being run by maybe the loveliest man alive, I was instantly annoyed by someone using the word 'champion' upon finding that there was a jug of tap water. I was then called up to the audition where the director and I both recognised each other from a previous audition years ago. I attempted polite conversation about this (despite remembering that I wasn't a fan the first time round) but I was completely ignored. I performed my speech, was given feedback which came from a voice balanaced precariously upon a knife edge of annoyance about my lack of knowledge of the play. I did it again. I asked questions about the rehearsals and was basically told to leave and bother someone else with my pointless queries. Never has my stock exit line of  'It was really lovely to meet you' been so insincere.

The lack of psychic ability has been an issue in the past. I had one audition where I found myself in the horrible, almost pitch-black, basement of a director. There was never any mention of the character needing to be able to speak another language and although my CV held no mention of another language on there (believe me, I'd love to have something to put alongside lonely 'English') he got annoyed when I didn't have a song prepared in a foreign tongue. My punishment was that I then had to hum the whole of 'Happy Birthday' while sat 2 inches away from the camera lens. The lesson from that audition? When someone asks you for a song, ignore the stupid voice in the back of your head screaming 'Happy Birthday!'

The worst though was for a very well paid feature film and I was somehow up for the lead role. The casting director had contacted me directly and provided no information about the film or what it entailed. When I arrived for the audition, they gave me a scene to look at for ten minutes which was of two women discussing their hopes and dreams for the future. All pretty simple you'd think. But no. Just as I was about to perform the scene for the audition panel, and I mean just as I opened my mouth to say the first word, the director mentions that I should be aware that the two characters have just escaped from a mental asylum. I don't know if this was some cruel trick to test my acting ability or if they had genuinely forgotten to tell me but it threw me. It threw me out of the window, over the rooftops and into the Thames. My brain made the snap decision not to go for a stereotypical 'madwoman' and played it in the way I felt was right. Oh how wrong I was. Never did I think that I'd actually be told off in an audition. The director proceeded to tell me that I could never hope to have a career if I continued to play safe and that they'd wanted me to go 'mental' in the scene. I then had a two minute lecture on my attitude towards acting, was made to read it again and I left feeling about as low as I could get. If only my psychic powers had been working, then I'd have known not to go to the damn audition in the first place.