Regular readers of my blog will know how much I despise workshop auditions. Those of you who are new to my inane, acting-related ramblings will have probably already picked up on just how much they make my skin crawl. A quick recap for those of you who have wandered onto unknown territory or just incase you're of forgetful mind, workshop auditions are the work of the devil. While they're wonderful for the casting team, they're hell on badly burnt toast for us actors. Otherwise perfectly charming actors are turned into monsters as the audition room is turned into a gladiatorial ring and suddenly shouting and over-emoting become the unwanted order of the day. Suddenly everyone thinks they need to overact and shout over one another just to make sure that they're the one that gets noticed. And the workshop audition I attended this week was really no expection.
I've attended many a workshop audition in my lifetime. They can be tedious - one I attended a while back asked us to partake in the counting game. To those of you lucky enough to have not played this game, it requires a group of actors to stand in a circle and maybe have their eyes closed. You then, as a group have to count to twenty. I know, I know, this sounds a tough ask for a gaggle of actors anyway but it gets worse. The point is that only one of you speaks at a time and if two of you say a number together then you have to start all over again. The director for this particular show was insistent that we make it which meant 30 minutes of this workshop was dedictaed to us essentially waiting around for someone to do a number two. Wonderful. And then there are the absurd ones. You haven't lived until you've been asked to get into a group of four and spend five seconds making yourselves into a collective electric toothbrush.
But the one this week was in a entirely different, utterly incompetent league of its own. Firstly, it was held in a church. And no, not the church hall or a little back room, THE ACTUAL CHURCH. It was also held in such a residential area that if I were to get lost, I'd have had to knock on someone's door to ask for directions. It was essentially an open audition and it appeared that I was mainly auditioning alongside 16 year olds who were all obsessed with asking each other if their hair looked OK and whether everyone thought they looked old enough to get into a club. I was so old compared to these embryo-aged sprites that it was only a matter of seconds before I became the wise old owl and found myself being asked all matter of acting advice. What should've been an audition room very quickly turned into a thespian version of Prime Minister's Questions and, like Cameron, I lied my way through it like a trooper.
Just as I was telling a slip of a thing that Gumtree was definitely the place to find the best castings, we were finally called to take our place amongst the pews. And what ensued was a depressing 90 minutes of some of the worst improvisation that I've ever seen. I'm not saying I'm a master improviser, however I'm proud to say that the second someome asks me to pretend that I'm meeting someone for the first time, I don't suddenly launch into an argument. It was incredible the amount of shouting people did. Just because you want to get noticed, it doesn't mean you have to scream that someone's a bitch the second the scene starts. For one scene, we were asked to take on a high status character and, yet again, people just shouted and screamed at each other. And, for some reason, there were a lot of lesbian love triangles and strip clubs being created. Like the worst casting call coming to life before my very upset eyes, everyone seemed to think that the way to get noticed was either to pretend that they were getting their kit off or asking Kitty if she wants to have it off. Apparently showing a director that you're happy to wiggle your bum in the face of another woman is the key to getting work. Sadly they're probably right.
The worst part was when we were asked to create longer improvised scenes. We were put into groups, given 10 minutes rehearsal time (don't get me started on being given rehearsal time for an improvisation...) and told to create a scene. It was a shambles. Instead of just trying things out, the group I was in insisted on planning every single little line and move and look they were going to do and discuss just how many arguments they could crowbar in. Thankfully it seemed that every other group suffered the same fate and when it was time to watch everyone else's, it was messier than a Friday night in Harlow. Instead of showing the director just how good they were at performing, all they did was prove just how gifted they are at shouting over someone else's loud wails. And, to be fair, if that's the main criteria for the role then the director is going to have a tough job selecting just one.
I'm just hoping that the director decides they're looking for a scowling woman who has flashes of murderous twitches when a teenager starts to raise their voice over a lesbian foetus. If that's what they wanted then I'd be the most successful actress of all time...
Showing posts with label drama games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama games. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 October 2012
Friday, 4 May 2012
To Bee Or Not To Bee
A little Twitter chat last night got me thinking. It got me thinking about horrible, nightmare-inducing things. I got me thinking until I wanted to turn my brain off and never think again. It got me thinking about the 'things' we have to be in auditions.
Y'see, if you have a nice, normal job, you probably didn't have to be something else when you went up for it. Yes, you probably had to be a more eloquent, presentable version of yourself, a being that you don't quite recongise who apparently works well one their own as well as part of a team and whose only fault is the inability to say no but I bet you haven't had to be an inkwell, a fried egg or a giraffe (many thanks to @ThatMrStirling & @Cromerty for sharing their audition woes.) Imagine the dismay when, after a beautifully thought out audition where you perform your monologue perfectly and read the script beautifully, you're then asked to be a broom. It's utterly demeaning and is one of the key moments where you truly find yourself questioning what on earth you're doing with your life.
Having to play inanimate objects is ridiculous. There's a game that some teachers or directors like to play where you're put into teams and random objects are shouted out and you have ten seconds to create that object between you. I think it's meant to show just how desperate actors are to please people but all it really achieves is getting actors to stand in a line with one idiot sticking their leg out while another gurns to try and show that they are representing a pencil. There's nothing quite like finding yourself in a flailing human pyramid pretending to be a piece of cheese to really make you realise that your parents are probably wildly embarrassed by you.
But even worst than this is animals. I love animals. If I wasn't an actor and I genuinely couldn't find myself someone who would support a life of sofa-sitting and crisp-eating, I'd work with animals. They're awesome and better than most humans. But find yourself being asked to be one in an animal and you find yourself in stereotype hell. If someone asks you to be an elephant, what's the first thing you do. Yep, you put your arm in front of your face and wave it around like it's a trunk. Monkey? Get your hands out of your armpits. Squirrel? Yes, I've just made you nibble at an imaginary hazelnut. Putting horrors of animal studies at drama school aside (running around a dance studio in a tiny leotard pretending to be a crane, anyone?) my worst experience was at a drama school audition. If my memory serves me right, we were in groups and had to devise a small movement piece. The rest of the auditionees then watched and were asked to come up with animals that it reminded them of. We then had to take the movement piece as inspiration and perform an extended improvisation piece as those animals. Other groups got lovely animals like lions and horses which mainly meant they got to wander around until time was called. However, when it was our group's turn, some wiseguy decided to shout out 'MOTHS!' which meant we then had to spend the next five minutes furiously flapping around a ground floor studio with windows on every side. All that ensued was bemused looks from other students as they walked on by and five hyperventilating auditionees who were fired up by flapping arms and adrenaline. It was not pretty. There was a myth at the school that one of the dents in the walls had been created by someone pretedning to be a bee. Note to directors: make sure you've got insurance before asking a desperate auditionee to be an airbourne creature...
And then there's trees. Because of this bloody advert:
People will always ask if you had to be a tree while at drama school and I can actually say that yes, I did once have to be a tree. It was during a seemingly innocent voice class and our tutor suddenly threw out the instruction 'And now I want you to be a tree.' Shocked looks all round as we wondered if we were being filmed for a TV prank show but no, he was being deadly serious and we entered a stereotype that we never imagined we'd be part of.
If only they'd ask me to be a resting actress. I can do that one perfectly...
Y'see, if you have a nice, normal job, you probably didn't have to be something else when you went up for it. Yes, you probably had to be a more eloquent, presentable version of yourself, a being that you don't quite recongise who apparently works well one their own as well as part of a team and whose only fault is the inability to say no but I bet you haven't had to be an inkwell, a fried egg or a giraffe (many thanks to @ThatMrStirling & @Cromerty for sharing their audition woes.) Imagine the dismay when, after a beautifully thought out audition where you perform your monologue perfectly and read the script beautifully, you're then asked to be a broom. It's utterly demeaning and is one of the key moments where you truly find yourself questioning what on earth you're doing with your life.
Having to play inanimate objects is ridiculous. There's a game that some teachers or directors like to play where you're put into teams and random objects are shouted out and you have ten seconds to create that object between you. I think it's meant to show just how desperate actors are to please people but all it really achieves is getting actors to stand in a line with one idiot sticking their leg out while another gurns to try and show that they are representing a pencil. There's nothing quite like finding yourself in a flailing human pyramid pretending to be a piece of cheese to really make you realise that your parents are probably wildly embarrassed by you.
But even worst than this is animals. I love animals. If I wasn't an actor and I genuinely couldn't find myself someone who would support a life of sofa-sitting and crisp-eating, I'd work with animals. They're awesome and better than most humans. But find yourself being asked to be one in an animal and you find yourself in stereotype hell. If someone asks you to be an elephant, what's the first thing you do. Yep, you put your arm in front of your face and wave it around like it's a trunk. Monkey? Get your hands out of your armpits. Squirrel? Yes, I've just made you nibble at an imaginary hazelnut. Putting horrors of animal studies at drama school aside (running around a dance studio in a tiny leotard pretending to be a crane, anyone?) my worst experience was at a drama school audition. If my memory serves me right, we were in groups and had to devise a small movement piece. The rest of the auditionees then watched and were asked to come up with animals that it reminded them of. We then had to take the movement piece as inspiration and perform an extended improvisation piece as those animals. Other groups got lovely animals like lions and horses which mainly meant they got to wander around until time was called. However, when it was our group's turn, some wiseguy decided to shout out 'MOTHS!' which meant we then had to spend the next five minutes furiously flapping around a ground floor studio with windows on every side. All that ensued was bemused looks from other students as they walked on by and five hyperventilating auditionees who were fired up by flapping arms and adrenaline. It was not pretty. There was a myth at the school that one of the dents in the walls had been created by someone pretedning to be a bee. Note to directors: make sure you've got insurance before asking a desperate auditionee to be an airbourne creature...
And then there's trees. Because of this bloody advert:
People will always ask if you had to be a tree while at drama school and I can actually say that yes, I did once have to be a tree. It was during a seemingly innocent voice class and our tutor suddenly threw out the instruction 'And now I want you to be a tree.' Shocked looks all round as we wondered if we were being filmed for a TV prank show but no, he was being deadly serious and we entered a stereotype that we never imagined we'd be part of.
If only they'd ask me to be a resting actress. I can do that one perfectly...
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