Love the previous poster's suggestions, some ideas that I am most likely to steal for myself. :)
Last year was my first year in the role of Theatre Sponsor/Troupe Director etc., so our audition process evolved over the year. And like it has been said, it really does depend on the play. For 'The Wizard of Oz,' it was a closed audition where the performer had to present a song and read a short monologue/text from the play. For 'Black Comedy,' a contemporary (well, 1960s) comedy with a lot of slapstick and exaggeration, each performer came in and worked with a short series of improvised instructions that were pretty physical. For 'Antigone,' all performers had to choose a monologue from a selection I gave them, from the text itself (from which I learned that 'immortality' is a very similar word to 'immorality'; who knew). That was a closed audition.
For 'Oz' there were callbacks, the others there was not, since for them I sat with my other staff (my wife, my assistant, and the stage manager) and we argued out the pros and cons of each one.
What is worth a couple of lines too is the fact that returning student performers don't need to take as long as new performers, which might be something to consider. You already know their reliability (which, at my school, was sometimes more important than initial raw talent), and their basic ability level. Sometimes I even had certain students in mind for certain roles, something which I never tell my students, and that also takes care of things. Just to clarify that one, I'm not the sort of Director who only gives two or three people the main roles every time, and like to rotate my leads so that my students can start to understand the nature of ensemble work.
Hope this helps, and a personal thank you to those who posted before, your suggestions and knowledge was helpful.
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Phillip Goodchild
Valrico FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-21-2014 08:05
From: Denise Connor
Subject: Audition Monologues
I am directing "You Can't Take It With You" in the fall, and I will likely have a LOT of kids come out for the show. To move the audition process along a little, I plan to play an improv game or two to see how kids work together and then have one monologue for all the girls and one for all the boys. They will indicate on their audition forms which characters they are interested in, and we'll go from there.
Two questions: 1. How do you handle your school play auditions? and 2. Does anyone have suggestions for male/female monologues that might work for such an audition? I was thinking I would avoid content from the actual show because the characters are all so different.
Thanks for your input!
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Denise Connor
English/Drama Teacher
Montoursville PA
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