3 Audition Recommendations to Help You Become the Next Flo

A working actor can prosper when booking a commercial, but the audition room can be very puzzling. As a Northwestern student specializing in Theatre and Integrated Marketing Communications, I have found two articles that will benefit you in your next commercial audition. 

How to Nail Your Next Commercial Audition by Jamie Irvine, a writer for Backstage.com, demystifies the audition room and provides insight into what casting directors are thinking. In Irvine's experience, she has found that being specific about clothing and knowing your colors will help bring your personality and archetype to life, but you have to be able to play the part you dressed for. Irvine touches on the importance of moments immediately before and after the audition; the waiting room is a great tool to come alive and express yourself by being aware of your surroundings. Once the audition is over, there's no reason to overthink what you just did because even your mistake might've made a strong impression. 

Source: Progressive Corporation

My Worst Moment: When Paul Scheer Realized Trying to Stand on Your Head Won't Get You the Part, by Nina Metz from the Chicago Tribune, looks at renown actor Paul Scheer's experience in an audition for a Twix commercial. Scheer was in his early 20s and felt like commercial auditions were high stakes because he might "hit the jackpot." Scheer felt pressure to stand out and make a dent, so he took inspiration from Robin Williams' audition for 'Happy Days' where he was on his head the whole audition. Scheer relied so heavily on trying to be memorable and do his two-line audition upside-down on a chair that he bombed the whole thing. 

Based on these two articles and my experience at Northwestern University and as a working actor, I have developed a few key tips to use when preparing for your next commercial audition. 

• Embrace Your Mistake. Making a mistake can be a good thing that shows the casting director something organic and natural, but don’t actively try to make a mistake.

• Use Your Archetype. Be aware of the types you are consistently called in for and make sure you can play those. Commercials rely on archetypes.

• Be Memorable, Naturally. It’s important to make strong choices in an audition to standout, but don’t force an unnecessary choice in a commercial audition where you might only have five seconds of screen time.

As actors, we must not be scared by the audition room but instead discover how to own the space. 

Julian Larach is a senior at Northwestern University studying theatre and integrated marketing communications. You can get in touch with Julian via LinkedIn or Twitter. 

Theatre Managers: 3 Ways to Improve Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Your Workplace

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is a buzzword surrounded by countless discourse in the theatre community. Frankly, theatres today are still dominated by straight, white men, and have very little space for intersectional identities. We have been talking about diversifying our casts, crews, and production team members since … well, forever, but we evidently have a lot more work to do. It is a huge task, and on an individual level, it seems too lofty and big an issue to tackle personally. Where to start?

As a student specializing in communications and theatre management, I have compiled two articles here that summarize the shortcomings in American theatre community’s diversity, as well as offer tips:  

“The Empty Space: A Look at How Theaters Have FilledGaps in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” at the NonProfit Quarterly by Al Heartley and Jocelyn Prince, is a statistics-packed spotlight on American non-profit theatres’ structural racism and sexism. The article starts with highlighting that in our increasingly multicultural society, non-profit theatre continues to cater to white, cisgender, heterosexual people. While theatre is often seen as a “shining liberal beacon”, audiences at theatres are aging and very few young people attend. It also showcases industry leaders who do it right: Oregon Shakespeare Festival with its holistic approach and all-staff training; TCG with its SPARK leadership program and continued effort in spearheading EDI in theatre; Dallas Theatre Center with its diverse programming and specific goals, among other groups. Heartley and Prince urge all theatre makers to take actions now and not be afraid to make big changes, as “the very power and impact of theater in American society are at stake.”

The inaugural class of TCG’s SPARK leadership program that examines leadership, vision, diversity, inclusion, and equity in theatre. Image source: HowlRound

 

“You want a diverse theatre? Prove it.” from HowlRound. This is an article advising theatre groups on how to improve their organization’s EDI, written by KarenaFiorenza Ingersoll and Deena Selenow. Taking a theatre hiring manager’s perspective, they write about different companies’ approaches to better practice in EDI as well as actionable items in the areas of recruitment, retainment, and casting. They suggest theatre groups to reach beyond their comfort zones when recruiting, learn from cultural differences across different communities, recruit leaders and managers with diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, they emphasize the importance of color-conscious, rather than color-blind, recruitment and casting practices.

Based on these two articles, here are three action items that we, as individuals, can practice: 

• Think Specific – Be specific about what kind of diversity the theatre is tackling, blanket terms give impressions of hypocrisy and laziness. 
• Welcome corrections – Everyone has room for growth and learning, don’t feel embarrassed or offended if a person corrects your wording or action; they are also imperfect.
• Keep pushing – Identities are not just labels, and diversity is not just boxes ticked off on a form; we must continue to push ourselves and strive to truly create a community that welcomes all people regardless of their race, ethnicity, ability, gender, sexuality, class, and citizenship.

It is my hope that these articles and suggestions will encourage more people to prioritize diversity in their team building, so that theatre can be a community for all people.  

Faye Oyang is a graduating senior at Northwestern University in the School of Communication. She has been actively involved in theatre on campus as a stage manager and a producer, and has served leadership roles in student theatre companies that focus on sociopolitical issues and activism.

She can be reached at oyangfaye@gmail.com as well as her LinkedIn.

When she isn’t rambling about run sheets and activist theatre, Faye also specializes in Communications Studies and Japanese.