Audition... on the Side

After more than 20 years of theatre, there is one lesson I have never learned: when creative people make the rules, they are made only to be ignored.

Take for example my recent audition. Striving always to be a good little rule-following professional, I followed the audition instructions to the letter. In fact, here those letters are reprinted here:

* Visit our casting web page
* Download the sides for the audition.
* Email us for an appointment.
* Include in the Email: Request a time to audition and role you are auditioning for.
* Chose one of the sides to perform on the evening of the audition (if we want to see others or see you read another part we will ask)

So, I visited the requisite web page. I downloaded the requisite sides. I e-mailed for an appointment. I included my requested time and the role I wished to audition for. And I chose one of the sides to perform.

When I was called into the audition room, no one asked which side I had selected. I was handed a side. A new side. It was not the one I had downloaded and chosen to perform. In fact, because I had stopped perusing sides after I had chosen one to perform, I had not seen this side at all.

Now mind you, I am fond of cold readings. I don't have any problems with being handed a scene with which I am unfamiliar at a cold-read audition. In fact, I think that's rather the point of a cold read. However, when I have been specifically instructed to download and prepare a scene of my choosing and am then asked to do something entirely different which serves to make the time spent diligently following instructions irrelevant, then, well... that is a bit of a problem.

I will not be cast in this production; that was a given before I even made the appointment for an audition. Whatever my talents, my "stage picture" is not what it must be for this production of a sex farce. I went in not so much to be considered for this role as to be remembered and recognized in future auditions where I might make a better-suited appearance.

And I suppose I went in to learn something about this theatre, too. For example, the next time I am instructed to download and choose a side, I'll be choosing them all.