Audition Process

Audition Process

The auditions were held on the 24^th September 2014, they were for a pantomime called Jack and the Bean stalk. After doing a read through, I started to take a liking to a couple of the characters, these characters were the part of Simon and the Fairy. I began my preparations for the auditions. I chose the piece of text I could best portray the character with, then learnt the lines within that particular extract, so that I could be off book for the audition fast approaching. In doing this I found that I was adding movement and gestures at the same time, putting my own unique twist on the characters. I also tried this out on my fellow peers and family to get their thoughts on how well it would work with the character. For instance, with the fairy who I auditioned for, she seemed to be a poetic, bubbly character, whereas I wanted to make the character different so I turned her from this dainty figure to a Rap Artist. Whilst doing this, I also ad-libbed a few nursery rhymes in the form of a set of rap “bars” and inserted some rap hand gestures, facial expressions and a 'drop and lock' walk usually associated with rapping.

I researched more about the pantomime and watched some clips on YouTube. (insert clip tag). As well as this, I read through a synopsis to make sure I fully understood the plot to get the characters to correctly fit in the play. In doing this, I found that I was adding movement and gestures, this developed my characters even more. The other character I auditioned for was the part of Simon, he was your stereotypical ‘cheeky chappy’, loved by the audience, type of character. I think the movement I incorporated for him was lots of fuss. I wanted the character to be a constant buzz of energy catching the attention of all watching with large movements and big smiles. This is key for a character like Simon as he has to connect with the audience for them to reply, take part in the pantomime and most importantly make it enjoyable to participate in for all of the audience.

The reason I auditioned for these characters in particular is because I liked the energy and comedic edge in them, I like the way they flow throughout the whole piece. They have high energy and bubbly personalities that I could really make original, I could see myself playing these characters as I am quite excitable myself. Though to get these characters to the best standard it would require a lot of confidence which would have been my struggle as that is something I need to work on and build up. Also the amount of audience participation that they make happen is another factor; it takes confidence to do that also. Audience participation is one of the main characteristics of pantomime, you need to keep the audience entertained and gripped, participating throughout.

I believe the audition went well, though I was asked to audition for the part of the evil character as well as the other two at the time of the audition, this was a minor setback as I didn’t expect it to happen and I hadn’t actually learnt the lines or prepared anything for this part. However, it was nice to be asked as I did end up enjoying the acting out of the part as I could be very melodramatic. I exaggerated the speech and movement to give the full effect. The reasons why I thought it went well is because I remembered the lines and was not given any prompts throughout, I projected my voice and annunciated clearly, also I performed to the best of my ability at that time and that’s the most you can do at the end of the day. 

In the end, I was successful in getting the part of the evil character: Nausea which I had not originally intended to audition for but saw it as an opportunity to really involve myself in what I considered an amazing part.