Actors

Today my heroes are actors.

Yes, actors.

But I don't want to write about their "process" or the art that they create - which can transport you to another place/time; give meaning to the unspeakable; inspire social change; uncover desires; and provoke you....

I want to write about the act of courage actors make every time they walk into an audition.

I sit on the other side of the table. When I am casting, I want everyone walking thru the door to be the right person for the job. I want to have many choices and I want everyone to be fabulous. I WANT to have a hard time making the final decision. Every audition is an opportunity to learn something new about the actor and the play. There are many of my counterparts who do not feel that way. They feel that the person coming through the door will only serve to show them what they don't want. They can be ungracious and downright rude to actors.

To walk into a room and give an audition requires bravery. Actors have no idea what the director wants to see, mainly because most of the time the director is learning the play as well and they don't know what they want to see. They don't know what happened in the room before they walked in (the rendition of 'Part of your world," five Bastard speeches, a spilt coffee, a nervous artistic director pushing their own agenda) - well, unless they eavesdrop - but that only adds to the pressure. Sure, there are ideas about how to "plan" your audition- textbooks that tell actors to make sure they audition at the end, so they are the last person the director sees, or first thing so they can set the bar and be on the director's mind all day. Those things don't work. Really.

Most auditions are cold reading. The actors reads it as they prepared it at home. Then the director either says, "thanks" and they're done -- which usually means "you don't get the role" OR the director will give them direction and have them do it again.

A lot of directors don't know how to talk to actors (i am sometimes guilty of this as well) and so the actor must try to decipher the director's intentions, ramblings, etc and make a bold choice during their next pass. First they have to get over the "yippee, they want me to try it again" jitters. And they may only get one more pass...

The actor will be asked to jump thru hoops in the 5 - 15 minutes he/she is in the room. Every actor hoop imaginable.

The actor may be doing all this with 2-10 people in the room. In some circumstances, the actor might not even know who the director is until they have done the first pass. God forbid the mistake the director for an intern (this has happened to me).

There is usually a reader, someone the actor has never met, that they now must play off of... if the reader is good, they play off of the actor. If the reader is bad - they give the actor nothing...

Everything is out there. They are asked to expose their core being and leave it open for introspection until the director is done examining it.

That is how you get a part.

Actors must also leave the world outside. If auditions are running 10, 15, 30 minutes late (and sometimes an hour) - the second they show their displeasure, they could loose the job. They have to be patient. Expect nothing and give everything.

It's a tough job.

It takes courage.