Had a theater-auditioning course today!
Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 11:01 pm
Just to clarify, it wasn't an actual audition for a play, but a 6-hour course on how to audition for live theater. And while my primary specialty is going into animation voice-acting, I knew that a lot of the principles in theater auditions can be applied to auditioning for most other styles of performing, including voice-over work. One of the great parts about this course, before I went in, was that I knew who the instructor was... from a LONG time ago. Most of you don't know this, but I had an old friend in elementary school named James, and way back then, we were virtually inseparable friends, having had a lot of similar interests (Transformers was, no surprise, a big one). James and I had been close since second-grade until the unfortunate separation before middle school; I moved to a different school and he moved to a different city. His family and mine had also known each other during that same time, and his family (who had immigrated here from England) were all up in the performing arts scene, doing anything having to do with acting, music, and Lord knows what else.
As it turned out, my instructor was the Mum of the family, Ellie, who'd been acting since she was only 2. So I figured this would be to my advantage; not just because she knew me, but also given that I want to do this for a real career, she might push me a little harder and prepare me better for when I go to auditions, where almost NOBODY would know who I am. So earlier today, I showed up to the Surrey Arts Centre and made it with a few minutes to spare... and Ellie was SHOCKED to see me! Apparently, the registration center hadn't given her a copy of the class list, and if she knew I'd be there, she'd have told James I'd be showing up! I had also re-united with another acting student whom I had met in an earlier acting course I took some time ago, so we got to catch up until everyone showed up and we got started. So to start off, we all did the usual "introduce yourself and tell us what you've done" segment, and there was this girl named Leslie whom I had never met before, but I could tell from her controlled enthusiasm and the way she was talking, she was determined to make it big without having a "diva" attitude. More on her later.
So once we went through the basic "theory" of how to audition -- and being aware of things you should also NOT do for an audition, both on your first try and also during the call-back -- Ellie gave each of us a short monolog to work on. Most of them were comedic, while some were darker and more serious, and yet others were a little "out there". The darker ones dealt with subject matter such as rape and other controversial topics (which really caused a hush over the room when they were executed really well), and the comedic ones balanced out the heavy stuff with their crazed antics. Each of us went up and did a first read-through, and Ellie would give us tips in getting our performance to be more effective with the material (limiting your movement, changing the pace of your delivery, know who you're talking to, etc.)
I ended up getting a comedic one, a sample from the play "The Foreigner", where I played a dull-witted local yokel in the Deep South, trying to teach simple English to a European settler who can't understand a word of English. We ended up having a lot of fun in making me say the word "fork" as "fow-werk", which was a riot. One of the best one, I thought, was about the woman who had prepared a frying chicken for a cooking demonstration for the 4-H Club... and her mother had already boiled the durned bird ("Where's mah chicken...?" ... "You BOILED it?!?!")! If you could have seen this monolog in person... yeah, a lot of us agreed we almost wet our pants in laughter.
We had a one-hour lunch break where we could go off where (and if) we wanted, as long as we came back on time. I chose to stick around along with a few others, and we were talking with Ellie about more acting stuff and catching up with other things; her younger son, Simon, is actually now a highly-successful stand-up comedian working in L.A. a lot... and he's even Robin Williams a few times. (Yes, that Robin Williams.) Eventually, the break was over and we had our second run of our monologs, making sure to include the notes that Ellie gave us in our first read. Then came the next step... pass our monolog sheet to the person on our right, and we'd get to read the "new" one that was given to us. The potential for hilarity was that it was possible -- VERY possible -- for gender-switches to happen, like a guy reading a woman's monolog and vice versa... and it happened. A few times. And I was one of them. :p I kind of lucked out, though; my "new" monolog was one of the out there" ones where the speaker was talking about a meeting with some sort of mystical guy, who told her about an atom that was embedded in her hand. It was actually pretty cool to work with, because it had all sorts of references to astronomy ("the sun exploded into a cosmic shower") geology ("this 'thing" must have been inside a fern, which got crushed into coal.. and then a diamond millions of years later...") and other scientific references... that, in slight contrast to the one who read it before me, I actually understood!
After some more additional notes, we began working on short 2-person scenes from various plays, including Neil Simon's "Fools" and the classic "The Importance Of Being Earnest." I ended up being partnered with Leslie for a scene from "Fools"; Leslie and I had talked a little bit before and we kind of sensed each other's acting energy, so she and I made little hesitation in pairing up.
The story of "Fools" was a village was suffering from a 200-year-old curse that forced its inhabitants to remain stupid, and a schoolmaster named Leon took it upon himself to use his teaching skills to brake the curse. He ends up being hired to teach a 19-year-old girl named Sophia, and ends up falling in love with her. (Yeah, Leslie and I were cracking up BIG time when we read our scene, too. ) So yeah, I got to be Leon the teacher, and Leslie played Sophia.
What was interesting to me was that Leslie often said she "can't do comedy" that well, but when we gave our scene from "Fools" a few walk-throughs, I think she was doing fine. We both loved the script, and I love things like wordplays and puns (as if you didn't know), along with bits of absurdity that you'd expect to see from Monty Python or Looney Tunes (i.e. Sophia's up in a balcony, and she says, "I'm down here!"). It was hilarious material to work through, and Leslie and I really clicked as actors. I usually find myself a better performer when I'm acting with someone from whom I can feed off their energy and them off mine, and when we get to play off each other, it turns out to be a better performance. And I think it showed when it was time for us to present our scenes; Leslie and I probably displayed the most cohesive stage energy and chemistry out of all the duos in the class.
Oh, and one other thing... the "Fools" scene called for Leon and Sophia to share a short kiss. Now of course, in classes such as these, no one has to do the kissing, especially when we're all complete and total strangers. But for some reason, probably because Leslie and I were working so well together, we actually thought we'd give it a try, to add a touch of realism into our scene. And no, it wasn't a full-on French, thank God (no way in hell I was gonna do that with an almost-total stranger). Just a short peck. It turned out another pair was also doing the same scene from "Fools", but only Leslie and I were brave enough to try the actual kiss. I was actually a little apprehensive about it, because I had never done a kiss scene before. But it came off really well, nice and short. (And before anybody gets any ideas, no, we're not planning on going out. But I'd actually love a chance to act with her again if it ever came up; she's really good and she's got the right attitude for succeeding in the business.)
Finally, unfortunately, like all things, the class was over (running over by about 5 minutes), and Ellie allowed us to take copies of other monologs and scenes that we could work on on our own time, and maybe use them as study material for future auditions and everything else in our attempts to get into the business. We gradually said our goodbyes (and I gave Leslie a spin-hug before she left; she giggled and called me crazy, and I said, "Join the club"), and Ellie and I got to talk again, telling more stories about acting and my own hopes in getting into voice-acting. Believe it or not, Ellie had actually done a little bit of anime dubbing as well; she voiced the Scottish-sounding mother on Master Keaton, and she's even worked with Michael and Paul Dobson... and she also knows Scott McNeil!
And voila... one more class, one more story, one more piece added to the career path.
Outtsyder
As it turned out, my instructor was the Mum of the family, Ellie, who'd been acting since she was only 2. So I figured this would be to my advantage; not just because she knew me, but also given that I want to do this for a real career, she might push me a little harder and prepare me better for when I go to auditions, where almost NOBODY would know who I am. So earlier today, I showed up to the Surrey Arts Centre and made it with a few minutes to spare... and Ellie was SHOCKED to see me! Apparently, the registration center hadn't given her a copy of the class list, and if she knew I'd be there, she'd have told James I'd be showing up! I had also re-united with another acting student whom I had met in an earlier acting course I took some time ago, so we got to catch up until everyone showed up and we got started. So to start off, we all did the usual "introduce yourself and tell us what you've done" segment, and there was this girl named Leslie whom I had never met before, but I could tell from her controlled enthusiasm and the way she was talking, she was determined to make it big without having a "diva" attitude. More on her later.
So once we went through the basic "theory" of how to audition -- and being aware of things you should also NOT do for an audition, both on your first try and also during the call-back -- Ellie gave each of us a short monolog to work on. Most of them were comedic, while some were darker and more serious, and yet others were a little "out there". The darker ones dealt with subject matter such as rape and other controversial topics (which really caused a hush over the room when they were executed really well), and the comedic ones balanced out the heavy stuff with their crazed antics. Each of us went up and did a first read-through, and Ellie would give us tips in getting our performance to be more effective with the material (limiting your movement, changing the pace of your delivery, know who you're talking to, etc.)
I ended up getting a comedic one, a sample from the play "The Foreigner", where I played a dull-witted local yokel in the Deep South, trying to teach simple English to a European settler who can't understand a word of English. We ended up having a lot of fun in making me say the word "fork" as "fow-werk", which was a riot. One of the best one, I thought, was about the woman who had prepared a frying chicken for a cooking demonstration for the 4-H Club... and her mother had already boiled the durned bird ("Where's mah chicken...?" ... "You BOILED it?!?!")! If you could have seen this monolog in person... yeah, a lot of us agreed we almost wet our pants in laughter.
We had a one-hour lunch break where we could go off where (and if) we wanted, as long as we came back on time. I chose to stick around along with a few others, and we were talking with Ellie about more acting stuff and catching up with other things; her younger son, Simon, is actually now a highly-successful stand-up comedian working in L.A. a lot... and he's even Robin Williams a few times. (Yes, that Robin Williams.) Eventually, the break was over and we had our second run of our monologs, making sure to include the notes that Ellie gave us in our first read. Then came the next step... pass our monolog sheet to the person on our right, and we'd get to read the "new" one that was given to us. The potential for hilarity was that it was possible -- VERY possible -- for gender-switches to happen, like a guy reading a woman's monolog and vice versa... and it happened. A few times. And I was one of them. :p I kind of lucked out, though; my "new" monolog was one of the out there" ones where the speaker was talking about a meeting with some sort of mystical guy, who told her about an atom that was embedded in her hand. It was actually pretty cool to work with, because it had all sorts of references to astronomy ("the sun exploded into a cosmic shower") geology ("this 'thing" must have been inside a fern, which got crushed into coal.. and then a diamond millions of years later...") and other scientific references... that, in slight contrast to the one who read it before me, I actually understood!
After some more additional notes, we began working on short 2-person scenes from various plays, including Neil Simon's "Fools" and the classic "The Importance Of Being Earnest." I ended up being partnered with Leslie for a scene from "Fools"; Leslie and I had talked a little bit before and we kind of sensed each other's acting energy, so she and I made little hesitation in pairing up.
The story of "Fools" was a village was suffering from a 200-year-old curse that forced its inhabitants to remain stupid, and a schoolmaster named Leon took it upon himself to use his teaching skills to brake the curse. He ends up being hired to teach a 19-year-old girl named Sophia, and ends up falling in love with her. (Yeah, Leslie and I were cracking up BIG time when we read our scene, too. ) So yeah, I got to be Leon the teacher, and Leslie played Sophia. What was interesting to me was that Leslie often said she "can't do comedy" that well, but when we gave our scene from "Fools" a few walk-throughs, I think she was doing fine. We both loved the script, and I love things like wordplays and puns (as if you didn't know), along with bits of absurdity that you'd expect to see from Monty Python or Looney Tunes (i.e. Sophia's up in a balcony, and she says, "I'm down here!"). It was hilarious material to work through, and Leslie and I really clicked as actors. I usually find myself a better performer when I'm acting with someone from whom I can feed off their energy and them off mine, and when we get to play off each other, it turns out to be a better performance. And I think it showed when it was time for us to present our scenes; Leslie and I probably displayed the most cohesive stage energy and chemistry out of all the duos in the class.
Oh, and one other thing... the "Fools" scene called for Leon and Sophia to share a short kiss. Now of course, in classes such as these, no one has to do the kissing, especially when we're all complete and total strangers. But for some reason, probably because Leslie and I were working so well together, we actually thought we'd give it a try, to add a touch of realism into our scene. And no, it wasn't a full-on French, thank God (no way in hell I was gonna do that with an almost-total stranger). Just a short peck.
It turned out another pair was also doing the same scene from "Fools", but only Leslie and I were brave enough to try the actual kiss. I was actually a little apprehensive about it, because I had never done a kiss scene before. But it came off really well, nice and short. (And before anybody gets any ideas, no, we're not planning on going out. But I'd actually love a chance to act with her again if it ever came up; she's really good and she's got the right attitude for succeeding in the business.)Finally, unfortunately, like all things, the class was over (running over by about 5 minutes), and Ellie allowed us to take copies of other monologs and scenes that we could work on on our own time, and maybe use them as study material for future auditions and everything else in our attempts to get into the business. We gradually said our goodbyes (and I gave Leslie a spin-hug before she left; she giggled and called me crazy, and I said, "Join the club"), and Ellie and I got to talk again, telling more stories about acting and my own hopes in getting into voice-acting. Believe it or not, Ellie had actually done a little bit of anime dubbing as well; she voiced the Scottish-sounding mother on Master Keaton, and she's even worked with Michael and Paul Dobson... and she also knows Scott McNeil!
And voila... one more class, one more story, one more piece added to the career path.
Outtsyder
