Audition Season

March means many things to many people: Spring Break, Lent, Passover, St. Patrick's Day, "in like a lion out like a lamb". For actors in New York City, it means Audition Season. While there are auditions in New York year round for shows throughout the United States, many regional theaters cast their summer season in March. For three intense weeks, there are more auditions than one person could possible attend. Last year, I missed audition season because I was away in Kansas doing "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". (Ironic, isn't it? Because I was in a show I was unable to audition for other shows.) This year, I submitted my resume and was granted audition appointments at a few of the theaters. Some theaters do not give appointments, so you must go early in the morning and sign up on a list, which often grows to over 500 people before 10:00 am when the auditions begin. If the list has more people than can audition in one day, the theater "types" by collecting resumes, looking quickly at each person, and then announcing who they will allow to audition, based on whether you are the "type" of person they need in the cast.

Audition season means getting up very early, rushing around from one midtown building to the next, strategizing with friends about signing each other into various auditions, and remembering your number on the list at each audition because you must go in order. It means carrying a water bottle, a snack, a dress, makeup, dance clothes, four pairs of shoes, a book of audition music, headshots and resumes everywhere you go. It means warming up in hallways and subways and fitting in a dance class whenever possible. It means waiting hours to sing for 30 seconds, or learning a dance on the spot and then performing it for the choreographer minutes later or acting out a scene for the director opposite someone you've never met before. It also means spending each day surrounded by people who are passionate about the arts and wondering what it would be like to live for the summer in the town where the theater is located, performing whatever show they are doing. The possibilities are endless. And that's why I love it.