The 12 Guideposts to Auditioning

The 12 Guideposts to Auditioning Guidepost #1: Relationships When determining your relationship with another character you must begin by asking questions. Most obviously, the first question you could ask is What is my relationship to the other character in the scene? The answer to this question will be a fact. For example, I am talking to my mother Or, I am discussing things with my doctor. While beginning with the facts is necessary it does not mean your work regarding relationship is complete. The fact of what your relationship is has the potential to springboard you into the exploration process of how you feel about the relationship. Audiences will truly believe your relationship if you have given yourself time and space to delve into questions that challenge, excite and inform you. If these questions are not answered your emotional life onstage and the relationship will fall flat. It is not important if your answers are right or wrong it is important however to commit fully to whatever choice you make. Asking questions has the power to bring your character into the Now and live truthfully in every moment you engage in. Guidepost #2: What Are You Fighting For? Conflict Motivation, objective, goal, drive, want and victory are all synonyms of each other I have overheard through my time working and training in the theatre and sometimes determining what your character s motivation is can be very difficult. However, if conflict is what creates drama then every scene must be treated like a battlefield and there must be a fight. If you ask yourself What am I fighting for? you will find a strong, positive, playable objective that will serve you better than a weak, negative objective. One of my personal favorite artists, Jason Mraz said this, Conflict inspires art. Therefore what s bad of the mouth, may be good for the heart. Look closely at any conflict and you will find it. We artists are damn near impossible to quiet. We must fight for what we want and stand up for our beliefs, but this fight cannot happen unless you know who you are fighting for and who you are against. This can be discovered by asking questions about

your relationships and how you feel about them. Once this is completed the journey into exploring conflict can fully begin. We as actors must explore and navigate to find conflict because through conflict we can learn to be truthful in fighting moment to moment to get what we want. Guidepost #3: The Moment Before The moment before, if executed truthfully has the power to transform whomever you are auditioning for within a few short seconds. Now, when I say truthfully, I mean truthfully developed. There is a big difference between finding truth in the moment of a scene and living truth through your entire process. I think living truth through process gives your analysis and understanding of character a great amount of weight as opposed to living truthfully in the moment of a scene which can be fleeting and force false energy if not attained. Living truth through your process is of great importance because your character experimentation and work will exude nothing but truthful choices. If you then allow yourself to let your choices become specific and refined you have found the starting line of the moment before. If done truthfully you will discover that your character work and analysis will transform into specific choices which will often be done without thought. It is not useful to think about your moment before. You must be honest and allow yourself to dive into the specificity of your truth, which at times may require a vast amount of vulnerability. This moment before will give your audition a certain energy and force that cannot be denied by your panel and can carry you through material that may still be undeveloped. Guidepost #4: Humor Humor is an essential ingredient that every actor must put into his/her work. An actor that is not conscious of humor is similar to a loaf of bread made with no yeast, it will fall flat. Humor is not being funny or making a joke, humor is not getting a laugh from your audience, humor is a quality that every human possesses but only few are conscious of when they actually access it. It is the deflation of a tense moment (big or small) into something more bearable, it begins with thought and then flows through the

body, affecting the actors entire Being. Try pin pointing moments throughout your day when you use humor. This will make you conscious of the humor you naturally posses and produce without having to use any effort. This will bring sub-conscious ignorance into conscious intention and will allow you to observe how humorous you really are. You may be very surprised. Humor can be found in virtually everything, and it could be said that there is more humor in drama than in comedy. In comedies humor may be more visceral and clear than in drama, however drama is ripe with humor when characters magically perform actions that will lead them away from tension. The humor cannot be forced or pushed. If it is it will create a false energy that will force the audience to become disengaged and dis-enchanted. If you argue that there is no humor in your monologue, scene or play it is your job to find it. Guidepost #5: Opposites Humans are masses of contradictions and within these contradictions opposites begin to emerge and become illuminated to the conscious, observing mind. Opposites must be incorporated to your character s fight to achieve what he/she wants because without opposites a character will be one noted and two dimensional. Audiences love to watch characters who are inconsistent and inconsistency is paired with opposites. It is a theme of life. Where there is love, there is also hate. Where there is joy, there is also melancholy and where there is energy, there is lethargy. You cannot have a positive without the negative just as the day cannot bask in sunlight without the cold, sharp moon. If an actor creates opposites they will create conflict which in turn creates drama. However, oppositions and conflict are worth nothing if the actor is unable to immerse him/herself in the drama. In life we try to avoid conflict but it is the actors job to embrace conflict. From this point we see the actor live through the process of trying to overcome or fight the conflict. If the opposites chosen are extreme then it is typical for the scene to instinctively fall into place and can force you to live in the moment. Sometimes the opposites must be searched high and low for, however once found your acting will be complex and three dimensional.

Guidepost #6: Discoveries I have heard this line said repeatedly in the theatre world You must say the lines as if you are saying them for the first time. Now, I must say that this common piece of advise is rather incomplete. Perhaps it could be said that The world of your character should be lived in as if you have never lived in that moment. If you are able to use your analysis and character work in a specific manner while implementing the other guideposts discussed, every moment onstage should feel as if it is a new experience for your character. This can be achieved by leaving your actor head at the stage door and exploring your character s mind through the potential discoveries that surround you onstage. It can even be simplified down to the way the set is dressed. Perhaps for one performance, the lamp you always turn on is slightly misplaced. How does that affect your character s thoughts? Or, maybe your scene partner is feeding you with new tactics you have not seen before. Observe these things, listen to them, live in them because good acting is not acting it is a constant flow of truthful discovery. Guidepost #7: Communication and Competition An actor can have the most glorious truthful heart and truly Be onstage, but if a certain feeling is not communicated properly to a scene partner or to the audience, the suspension of disbelief will drop. Much as it takes two to tango, it takes two to communicate. If the circular, two-way cycle of communication is dropped, unclear messages will be sent and the moment, as well as the audience, will be lost in translation. It is a life long practice to actively communicate. Active listening and active responding are key components to communicating effectively and can be put in practice by imagining communication as a circle, a circle that cannot be broken until you have received what you sent out. If that circle of communication is broken a misunderstanding takes place, and wether it be a large misunderstanding or a small one, it will indefinitely leave false impressions between all involved in the circle of communication. Ultimately the most brilliant way to communicate effectively is to duplicate, feel and agree,

however this is not always the case. It takes years of practice in order to be open and vulnerable enough to actively listen and respond to every moment of communication in our lives. However, this can be channeled into the world of the play and can prove to be very transforming when two characters are fully embraced in a scene and they are effectively communicating with each other. Competition also plays a big role in the dialogue between communication and relationships. Although many of us may not seek it in our lives, competition surrounds us and when it becomes devoid of the negative connotation associated with it, the word Competition can become empowering. The word is a powerful call to action. It creates urgency and raises the stakes of a scene or any relationship inside or outside the theatre. Many defense mechanisms, varying from person to person often arise when told to embrace conflict or even accept it, however much like the commandments say to love thy neighbor, compassion can only be empowering to an actor and the craft. Guidepost #8: Importance Ever since we were very young, we have all grown up with stories. May they be told cozied in a sleeping bag or boasted loud in an opera house, these stories excite our fantasies and stimulate our imaginations. It is a euphoric sensation that has transferred from generation to generation. The reason these stories are so invigorating is because they capture moments in time when the lives of the characters are changing, shifting and evolving in magnificent proportions. When an actor portrays everyday life onstage the audience will tune out for reasons 1) the actor is portraying 2) everyday life is not as interesting as a life evolving in magnificent proportions. An actor can reduce himself to playing things safely and it s a very easy choice to make because the natural human condition is to be afraid to get in trouble and experience feeling that vulnerability. However, much like conflict, it is the actors job to discover, explore, feel and live in the vulnerability of Being in situations of magnificent proportions. Some of these moments may be brief, but just as lightning is brief they both contain mass amounts of power. Never underestimate the importance of small moments as well as large ones. They both are the backbone of the dreamlike spine that spans from the stage to the audience.

Guidepost #9: Find the Events I have heard the word tilt before when discussing the action of marking events which happen in the world of the play and I personally believe that when an actor is consistently actively discovering he/she will find tilts or events throughout the entirety of the play. Change is constantly happening all around us, and if the actor can stay in tune with those changes great deals of change will happen within the hearts of the audience. When dealing with modern plays sometimes the events can be difficult to find, but when you dig deep beyond the roots of subtext we can find events waiting to be discovered and played out. Events can happen in all forms including the minds of our characters and should be mapped out because they hold a great importance. Guidepost #10: Place The best place for an actor to place himself in an audition is somewhere that is real to the actor. This avoids the work of creating a massive, vivid, specific picture of where your character is the moment before. The imagination moves quickly when it has memories to call upon and it drags when it must paint beautiful pictures quickly. Give yourself a breath and draw upon yourself to paint the world you are in. Although you are most likely in a dank theatre the imagination can place you anywhere when activated through sense memory and impulse. Once the image of place has been generated it is of higher importance to acknowledge how you feel about where you are. Are there sensations of bliss, or is it a feeling of misery and despair? If the feeling is acknowledge and accepted it will translate into emotional value. Guidepost #11: Game Playing and Role Playing In this world life flows all around us. Within our lives we play many different games and take on many different roles depending on our circumstance or situation. The way you project yourself changes with every interaction and relationship you have.

This projection could also be defined as a Role and we play this role within a game. In each game, or rather each interaction there are a new set of rules and stigmas attached to it. Every situation we are in is a different game and in that game we take on a new role. It is of great importance for an actor to be aware of the many roles and games his/her character takes on and how to appropriately communicate that the role and game has tilted or shifted. Now, rules are meant to be broken and often times characters break the rules of the game which leads to conflict. Not only is it important to analyze where your character changes roles and enters a new game, but it of great importance to also understand where your character breaks the rules and what becomes of the rule breaking. Once we have assessed where rules have been broken we can determine whether the game was won or lost. Did you get what you were fighting for? Or, did you lose trying? Celebrate your victories and let your losses stimulate your drive to win your next game, but always play to win the game. Keep the urgency and immediacy of winning each moment at top priority and the audience will be able to clearly track your journey Guidepost #12: Mystery and Secret This guidepost talks about a quality that is quite difficult to put into words. Mystery and Secret are two qualities that a great actor has and will never let go of. When going into an audition or working with a scene partner endow whomever you re working with with your full interest. Be interested NOT interesting. This will not only give you the opportunity to explore a relationship, but it will also allow yourself to be open and receptive to the quiet of active listening and will heighten your presence as an actor. A strong listener possesses a great deal of presence, more so than someone with a boisterous, energetic, outgoing, loud personality. If you are able to harness that quiet listening you will find your presence being recognized and interesting without having to do anything. There is great power in inner stillness and if it is captured, your work will shine.