Auditioning: Attendance, Attitude, Appearance

Auditioning: Attendance, Attitude, Appearance

When it comes to your attitude towards an audition your manor should be solely focused on what is the best for you and to work hard to get where you want to be. You should think of it as a business and like it is a job. 
Your approach to yourself as a business is that you should have a good head shot. This can sometimes be the first thing that a casting call, or drama school audition or producers first see of you and you want to have a good head shot to give a first good impression even before they have met you. Essentially you should think of your head shot as a check board - you should have a plain background of either black or white. Depending on your hair colour, a black background would be more suited for people with light hair to show up on camera and also then have a contrasting coloured top to the background so in this example a white top. This way this gives the best effect and highlights your features and nothing gets lost in the focus of the photo. When coming to your approach and manor you should have an amazing performance CV. This should include your appearance features, your skills, any grades you have achieved in relevant performing skills, any jobs that you have done that is relevant to the industry. Again a performance CV may be the only thing that a casting director or production team sees before they see yourself in person, you therefor need to market yourself and have an amazing CV that promotes yourself correctly and shows off everything that you have done that will impress people to employ you or take you on for training. 
A show reel is another aspect to think about on showcasing your previous experience. An actor's show reel is a short piece of video or film footage showcasing an actor's previous work.  Actors who have a show reel are more likely to get work as it becomes much easier for them to promote themselves to acting agents and casting directors. This is an essential factor of you promoting yourself to get you the best offers of work if directors and agents are able to see your level of work and to see your capabilities and potential. 

An important attitude to have is  'Work creates Work' simply meaning that you may have to start at the bottom of the chain to work your way up in the industry to get where you want to be. So by having a determined attitude of working hard on a low salary in a not so thrilling jobs can open up opportunities for you. For example working backstage volunteering to move set can then lead to further opportunities by then having the possibility to work as crew and then further to stage manager. All work leads to more work so having the correct attitude and be prepared to take on any task will get you far in where you want to go.

Appearance is very important when it comes to an audition. Presenting yourself in the correct manor and looking your best will give off a good example to yourself to casting directors and acting agencies. When going to an audition, ladies should have neutral/natural makeup- a little bit of mascara and lip gloss/stick. You want to look presentable but not too over the top. Your hair should be versatile and be easily adapted and should be a neutral block standard colour (not bright red or green or half one colour and half another) preferably ladies hair should be long so that enables more ability to do different styles with the hair come what ever it may be that needs to be done to it. The ground rule for your hair style and colour is that is should always match your head shot! For men, hair should be a natural style and not have a giant Mahican  that stands out and is too much of a statement. You should essentially have no stand out piercings or tattoos, because again this gives too big of a statement where you should really have a natural and neutral look about you. 
When it comes to auditioning you should wear the correct clothing and shoes. Your shoes should be appropriate to the tasks and activities that you will be doing. For example you should not turn up to an audition in high stiletto heels if you are about to take part in a jazz class. Shoes should be comfortable for whatever activities that you may do and also should be appropriate for any sort of dance class that you may be taking part in e.g ballet shoes for a ballet class, jazz shoes/trainers for a jazz class etc. 
You should try to stand out at an audition to be recognised, however you should have a balance. You should try to stand out in a subtle way by wearing a coloured hairband or a coloured leotard or coloured socks, these are subtle ways of standing out from a group without giving a massive statement and being distracting. 

The rule to auditions is to never be late. To be late gives you a bad reputation and affects you as an auditionee. If an audition is in London for instance it takes 2-3 minutes on the tube from station to station, so you should always double the minimum time its needed to get to your audition plus another half an hour. Organisation is a key factor when auditioning, it again is not a good name against you if you are unorganised and forget anything when it comes to your audition. When auditioning for drama schools or open auditions the essentials that you need for these auditions will be:

• Any monologues needed (more than one if required) including spare copies
• Sheet music for song auditions (more than one song if required) in a folder or taped together in the right order for the pianist.
• Dance shoes: be prepared for all classes e.g ballet, jazz shoes/trainers, character shoes 
• Comfortable plain respectable dance wear 
• Plenty of food and drink
• Blanket/Warm Coat - especially for open auditions if you will be waiting outside for a few hours - make sure you bring layer up to layer down clothes so you are not too hot or cold.
• Small suitcase to carry everything around in
• Umbrella
• Try to make a friend in a cue so if you need the toilet, they can hold your place for you.

Attendance, attitude and appearance are extremely important when it comes to any sort of audition as you want to make a good impression but don't overstate yourself to be distracting and too over the top when it comes to appearance. Attendance and organisation wise you need to be sure to have plenty of time to get to places and have time for any delays, and you need to double check you have everything you need for an audition. You may not always need everything you pack, but it is always best to prepare and pack for all eventualities and then not have anything. Last of all on a whole your attitude should be professional and committed to what you do and try to give the best impression you can give and be prepared for all eventualities and be sure to have the correct approach and manor to directors and agents at any audition you may have in your career.