by Chris Fox

Created on: March 13, 2010   Last Updated: June 28, 2010

One of the most stressful things when it comes to acting is the audition. Although with the companies I have been with we’ve been given set audition pieces and songs to learn, it doesn’t make it any less stressful. The main problem with auditioning is that a majority of amateurs actors do not believe that they are as good as they actually are, myself included.

A very common thing you will hear during the audition faze are things like “I can’t sing this song, it’s too difficult” or “I don’t think I’m going to audition for that part, I’m not good enough”. But very often it isn’t a case of looking for sympathy, they genuinely believe that they are not good enough, but this sometimes works in your favour when you get a better part than you originally anticipated.

The first piece of advice I will give on preparing for an audition is that if you are given a variety of characters to audition for, choose the ones you think you would enjoy playing, whether or not you believe you can actually get that part. There is always a good chance that you could get the part, and even if you don’t, it may not be because you were not good enough for the part, but more the fact that someone was just better suited for the role or did a better audition, and there could be a chance that you could still get a smaller role based off how well your audition went.

My second piece of advice would be to perform your audition to somebody else. This is good for a couple of reasons. The first being that they will tell you how good your audition is. If you practise your audition on your own, and you believe that you aren’t good enough for the part, then chances are you will still believe you aren’t good enough even after spending a long time practising it. Meanwhile someone else will see how good you actually are, and will be able to tell you if your audition is good. The other reason that this is good is that they can also help you improve areas that seem weak, which means you audition will look stronger by the time it comes to do it.

My final piece of advice would be to have fun when practising the audition. If you take the audition piece too seriously then after a while you will not enjoy doing it, and you will begin to look bored. It will also affect any emotion you were going to put into it, and so when it comes to doing the audition it will not be as effective, and you will more likely lose out on the role to somebody else.

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