Now that we’ve pretty much made it through the other side of auditioning, I thought it might be fun to talk about the ridiculous things that happened during this season, from being snowed-in in NYC during Unifieds to anything else that was too funny (or too sad not to be funny). I’ll start.
My son auditioned at NY Unifieds for Guthrie and they have a very interesting monologue requirement. In addition to the standard monologues, they ask for "something from a role that others would probably never cast you as, but that you would love to play and feel passionate about.’ Something that my son loves is comedy/humor and he immediately thought of the role of Maria Merelli from ‘Lend Me a Tenor’ by Ken Ludwig. Maria is a big-tempered Italian woman with a big accent and a lot of love for her philandering tenor husband. She and her husband Tito have a few scenes where they’re slamming doors and yelling (Hey, shut-up! He’s a-stupid!–as an example of her over-the-top accent and personality), and one of her scenes has some great innuendoes and always gets a big laugh. My son decided to do that scene. He practiced a lot and had the comedic oversized accent down pretty well.
So (anyone who knows Guthrie might know where I’m going with this), he walks into the audition room and is introduced to two auditors, one of whom is the head of movement for the program, a lovely woman with…you guessed it…an accent. Since there was no hole in the floor for my son to fall into and disappear, and he had no other ‘reach’ monologue prepared, he plowed ahead and did Maria Merelli, over-the-top accent and all…
Through this process, my son read so many plays and monologues; he auditioned in front of dozens of auditors, and it’s crazy to think that this one combination of the two would spell disaster! He doesn’t remember much after the initial introduction and he’ll never know if he was rejected because was simply not talented enough for the program, or because he completely offended one of the top professors in the program, but he got into a few other great choice schools and everything turned out well for him in the end (and he has a nearly unbelievable story to tell)!
So, my D went in for an audition and said: “I’ll be performing Imogen from Cymbeline” (pronouncing it ‘leen.’) The adjudicator said: “it’s Cymbeline” (pronouncing it with a long i - like “I”.) My daughter was a little confused, she’d never EVER heard it pronounced with the long I sound and couldn’t tell if he wanted her to correct him or go along with him. He asked her to do the monologue again, asking: “could you do the Shakespeare again?” and my D said: “Cymbeline?” (pronouncing it “leen”) and he looked at her in disgust and said: “Ugh. You can go. I’m done here.”
We spent the whole ride home googling and youtubing “Cymbeline” and nowhere, ever, finding it pronounced with the “line” sound. We finally gave up when we found a lecture from an English professor at Harvard who pronounced it “leen” - we decided she was the arbiter and this adjudicator was stupid and made his school look awful.
It’s become a family joke now but man, that drive home from the audition was painful.
Love it. It is fun to laugh over these things. My S was on his 18th or so audition towards the end of the season at unifieds and he had become just a little too comfortable for his own good and stopped checking the requirements for each school. He strolls into the Syracuse room and starts with his first monologue which was a Shakespeare piece. Little hint to those next season - Syracuse is a school that requires two modern pieces and says no Shakespeare.
Part b of the story is the auditor actually uses his Shakespeare piece to give him adjustments and never says a peep about not following the rules. It isn’t until he leaves the room and the kids outside look at him aghast and say “we can do Shakespeare?” that my son even realizes he messed up.
Part c of the story is my son got accepted to Syracuse - so it just goes to show, it sometimes can be okay. But I use this to remind him to never get over confident and forget to check the rules.
@4gsmom I saw Cymbeline in NYC last summer and it almost sounded like they were saying, “Cymbelynn” sometimes! What a jerk that adjudicator was!
@VaTheatreMom2020 great outcome! I’m sure that some of the adjudicators realize that the kids are running around, trying to keep all the requirements straight–it’s good that you found one!
The sooner we can look back on this process, the better!!! (D is still waiting to hear about the Pace alternate list in order to make a final decision…)