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.

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...

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.