Musical Theatre
In musical theatre, a standard audition consists of two sixteen-measure selections of music, contrasting in style, intention, characters, time period, or all of the above. There is also usually a monologue portion, where the actor is asked to perform a one-minute monologue. A headshot and résumé are almost always required. Although auditions vary depending on the theatre, program, or show, this formula is considered “the norm” in the musical theatre world. The purpose of an audition is two-fold. Practically, performers audition to get a callback. "Callbacks", or callback auditions, allow the artistic team to assess a performer’s skills in accordance with specific characters. They see the actor for particular parts and have them sing the songs that those characters sing, read the scenes in which those characters shine, etc. Therefore, because this business will be handled later, the audition is not a platform for selling oneself as a character. Instead, the audition is a chance for the performer to show off what they do best.
Read more about this topic: Audition
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or theatre:
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Glorious bouquets and storms of applause ... are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys. But to move an audience in such a role, to hear in the applause that unmistakable note which breaks through good theatre manners and comes from the heart, is to feel that you have won through to life itself. Such pleasure does not vanish with the fall of the curtain, but becomes part of one’s own life.”
—Dame Alice Markova (b. 1910)