Brigham Young University's Theatre Education Database

Pass out and invite the students to fill out the “stressors survey.” This quiz will have a variety of “stressful situations” which they will rate from 1 to 10 as how much they stress them out.  Each activity is somehow related to auditioning.

Step 1: Transition: Once students have completed their survey, go through each question and briefly get a sense of how much or how little each thing “stresses” out the class.

Step 2: Play the Bomb and shield game. The game is played by inviting the students to walk around the room. The students pick someone to be their shield. They do not have to walk by this person, but they can know that they are there and that they make them safe and happy. Next, invite students to pick a bomb. Remind the students to not make it obvious who is your bomb and shield, but do your best to keep your bomb between you and your shield. Then, say the bomb is about to go off, and count down from 5. After the bomb has exploded, invite the students to share “who got blown up?”

Step 3: Instruction: We play this game because there are some places and things you do to make you feel safe. Find a shield when going into an audition that will help you to feel safe and relaxed.

Step 4: Instruction/Guided Practice: The first enemy to any kind of performance is too much tension. A little bit of stress is good for you. Has anyone ever had stage fright? What is it like? Here are some ways to combat those feelings. Walk through students through a tense and release exercise. Whenever they are in a stressful situation, they can do a progressive body scan and tense a muscle and then release it. This coupled with breath will help immeasurably, and it can be done from the comfort of your own chair.

Step 5: Guided Practice/Assessment: Positive thinking is also a key idea to making the audition a positive one.  So, let’s make a wall of frustration as relates to any past, present, or future auditions. Here is your chance to get it all out. After students have written out all their fears and anxieties about auditioning, turn the paper over. “Okay, now that we’ve gotten all those out of our system. Let’s rephrase what we wrote into positive statements.” For example, If worst comes to worst, you’ll be better at auditioning!

Step 6: Instruction: Share some disaster or success stories of your own, famous people, or your students. Michael Shurtleff’s book Auditions have some excellent stories of famous people not getting cast.

Step 7: Instruction: What do you think are reasons why you didn’t get the part? Some possible answers include Not “the look”, Better roles for you in mind in the future, Someone better suited, etc. How can you improve your attitude about auditioning by knowing some reasons why you might not get cast?

Step 8: Instruction/modeling:  Instruct the students that they can improve their chances by improving their audition skills. Invite one student to participate in the following acting activity. The following scene will be performed once by the instructors. Then at the second time through, the instructor can stop the actor and suggest a different course of action *Instead of having the actors stop the action and take the place of the performers, they can offer suggestion, so more of the individual problems can be pointed out. Invite a few more students to give bad examples like divas, weird accents, too close into personal space, etc.

Actor I—Auditioner

Actor II—Casting Director

Actor one enters the space with no confidence, apologizing for being late and talking really quiet.

Director: Start Whenever you are ready. And, just so you know, we have a lot of auditioners tonight, and I might stop you if I’ve seen what I need.

Actor: Okay, sure, yeah, that’s okay. I’m super nervous, but I’ll do my best. (Actor begins audition piece too quiet, then stop breathes really quickly and deeply. and starts again too quiet.)

Director: I’m really sorry to stop you, but I can’t hear you.

Actor: (surprised) Oh, okay. (Moves uncomfortably close to the director and begins playing directly to the director).

Director: (in the middle of the piece) Thank you so much.

Actor: Oh, but I was just getting to the best part. Dang it. I hate this. I didn’t want to be in your stupid play anyway. (The actor storms out)

Director: (roll his or her eyes) Next.

Step 9: Instruction: Discuss Principles of Good auditions

Trust those for whom your are auditioning

They WANT you to do well!

Practice auditioning for others

Perform to another person

From the second you come in ACT confident!

Learn how to make a good audition

Change how to make the audition good, change after doing a bad one

Focus your energy on being the best performer, then it is out of your hands. Give auditioners a chance to cast you late

Don’t get blacklisted for bad attitude.

Professionals audition all the time and don’t make most things they audition for. You need a thick skin.

Share good positive experiences about auditions

Step 10: The remainder of time can be used to practice the individual audition pieces.