How are your local theatre auditions structured? We have worked with a couple of theatres that structure the auditions similarly.
Auditions: a week or maybe two prior to the first rehearsal.
Call Backs: usually the following day. Definitely within a week.
Conflicts: requested at auditions, asked to confirm for call backs.
Cast list: announced within a day or two of auditions.
Recently my d had an audition at another local theatre that was structured very differently and I wondered what the norm was for other theatres. What has your experience been? Does the structure of the audition change if some of the cast is paid?
Our experience with local theaters is that auditions take place months ahead of first rehearsal, but the rest of the timeline is similar to yours and conflicts must be given at time of audition. Many theaters are auditioning for summer theater now. Two weeks ago, my S did a “unified” audition for summer work throughout Ohio/Indiana/Michigan/+ he was given one callback scheduled in February. Others that were interested in “possibly” hiring him, said they would get back “in a few weeks”.
I can only speak as a mom watching from a distance, but D has only done paid work for the past couple years. It seems she usually has contracts signed at least a few months prior to reheasals starting, but I think the audition process often starts long before that. Some theatres start first with an open general call for an entire season, usually followed by a series of show-specific open calls and callbacks throughout the year. Most often D is either called in by Directors or Casting Directors, or seen by agent submission, very late in this process (often months after the initial open calls) and sometimes hears the same day, while other times it’s weeks or months before she gets a contract. Often the “cast list” isn’t known even by others in the show until press announcements. With long-running shows actors are called in periodically as replacements are sought, and are sometimes kept on hold for months.
From the outside it looks like a confusing jumble, and I know that fitting various auditions and contracts together to make a year’s worth of income can be a scheduling nightmare. I’m amazed to see how often working actors have to skip final callbacks - even for huge opportunities - due to schedule conflicts. There can also be big last-minute casting ripples in regional markets as people are called up to Broadway or suffer injuries or… And I’ve heard it said that if you are cast once for every ten auditions you are having an amazing career.
The skills I know that D must have fully mastered include lightening-fast preparation plus the ability to audition and then walk out of the room and completely forget about it, movng quickly forward to the next thing.
I have no idea how our kids can survive any of this. They must all be very flexible, brave and resilient and basically completely unlike mom.
@mom2MTgal - I can tell you that for a theatre like ours, which is a fairly standard professional summer stock, the casting process really starts in early January.
We start receiving audition videos between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Those videos get thrown into a folder until we start officially casting.
We hold our NYC call (we do appointments only, self-submissions and agent submissions) in late February/early March and have a mix of unifieds, local calls, and video submissions to supplement the NYC actors.
Our initial casting offers go out by Mid-March - with an early June start date. We try and have the entire season cast by early April. That allows us to have time to book flights, secure appropriate accommodations, etc.
We often lose actors between the day they sign their contract and the first rehearsal. They might be a late replacement at the MUNY or a different “big” stock - or as we had last year, two days before move in, they might leave because they booked Bway.
Early Jan-Late March is considered Audition Season. Most summer stocks are putting their companies together, and the major regional theatres are doing the early calls for their year long seasons. There is also the stress of the major Broadway shows and Tours doing their required EPAs around that time, often because they know that Jan-March is when most actors make it a point to be in the city for audition season.
Something I’ve found interesting is that it seems that once actors reach a certain level of familiarity in a particular market they frequently enter the audition cycle at the callback stage, which means that rather than auditioning from their book they need to prepare all the sides and songs for a specific role. This obviously requires a lot more preparation, sometimes basically learning an entire role, to be seen for the first time by a Director who may instantly know you’re not who she/ he is looking for. So essentially every audition starts requireing a bigger time investment. I had never considered this before seeing it happening.
@momcares, that is typical for all auditions at the theatre company I am involved with, where auditions are appointment only. It’s interesting to see the few who come in without being ‘off book’, even for only one number. One day is set aside for non-Eq auditions. Submissions come in through August, auditions in September, casting is finished, usually, by late October and rehearsals begin late January for a February 19th opening.
Ironcally often it’s the fully-employed actors who may struggle more with this. I’ve more than once seen D get called in on short notice for final callbacks on a role she’s never been seen for which requires her to learn several songs and sides in a day or two. She doesn’t get to go in and explain that she’s been in extended tech rehearsals for a show that opens this weekend while others in the same callbacks have been working on the material sometimes for months. Nice problem to have, I know, but it’s still a real problem for actors attempting to peice together steady streams of work.
@MomCares That may be the case in your daughter’s experience but not with the particular auditions I referenced. Once they are offered an audition, the actors are given the songs and sides for one number, and no one has had the material for months. Everyone has it for the same amount of time, probably a couple of weeks. There’s no excuse for not coming prepared, in my opinion.
I hear you, and no doubt what you say is true for your theatre, but as a mom watching from the outside I hope that when kids are in the midst of lengthy Equity tech, get a large number of sides and songs two days before an audition and have to squeeze in learning the material and getting transit to an audition, they cut themselves some slack when they can’t pull off an audition of the same quality they could do otherwise. And yes, often there are people in those callbacks who entered the audition process months earlier.
I don’t expect the theatres to forgive actors in that circumstance, but I certainly hope they can forgive themselves!
@Joyfulmama - the kids learn about summer stock opportunities and other professional opportunities when they hit school from the upper division students and faculty, both formally and informally. At my d’s school, Western Michigan, several summer stock companies hold auditions on campus. I am sure this happens at many other schools as well. Many MT program faculty members work professionally and so are able to advise students on the specifics of working locally, regionally, and nationally.
Some of the major Unified professional auditions for summer (and year round) work include:
**UPTA - United Professional Theatre Auditions
Strawhat Auditions
NETC - New England Theatre Conference
Midwest Theatre Auditions
SETC - Southeastern Theatre Conference Auditions
OTA - Ohio Theatre Alliance Auditions**
Various theme parks also hold auditions in major cities throughout the fall and spring.
At WMU (and I am sure many other MT programs) the students go through simulated professional auditions each year where they have to prepare an audition song and monologue for a specific genre of musical (Golden Age, Early Contemporary, Current Contemporary, etc.), go through a first round audition, and are assigned a specific show that they are called back for. They then have 48 hours or so to memorize sides and songs for that show and go through a simulated callback audition in front of a panel for a grade and feedback (as described in the previous posts in this thread).
I think this sums it up perfectly. I’m sure there are programs that devote significant class time to teaching kids the specifics of how various markets work, but from what I’ve seen much of that learning really happens in the trenches under the guidance of friends, faculty and agents.
if you live in the tri-state area (specifically New York on Long Island), there is a website called debsliweb- search on google, and you will find the homepage. There, the lists for cast calls are posted. Good luck!
