Audition Behavior

OK, so I have a couple. The first is on the last show I directed. I had an actor who, based on a past performance, I'd kind of wanted to work with. I guess he'd be about 60 years old or so. We'll call him Actor X. He came to the audition, filled out his form and sat at a table.

A certain actress came in, also one I'd wanted to work with again. She's quite attractive, and about 30 at the time. We'll call her Actress Y.

Upon her entry, Actor X proceeds to quite loudly flirt with her. Maybe that's an understatement. He was hitting on her, quite blatantly, and disrupting my auditions with it.

I get Actor X to shut up so I can hear the other actors auditioning, but at some point he still finds a way to shove his hands completely down the back of her pants during a hug. Yep, you heard me.

I cast them both. Actor X couldn't control his sexual desires nor behavior throughout the entire run -- not just with her, but with both of the other actresses I'd cast as well. (Luckily for him, he did manage to control it with my AD, who is my girlfriend.)

Oh yeah, he's on my own personal "do not use list" now.

Honestly, Actor 'X' in the previous post was not me. I only mention this because it very possibly could have been.

Dennis Stewart

The one audition that stands out the most for me was one for Winnie the Pooh, where several children were needed. The auditioneers were asked to either sing Happy Birthday, or Winnie the Pooh. Here's what one little boy did, and the exchange that followed.

He sang:

Winnie the Shit, Winnie the Shit.
Shitty Little Shitter, oh Shit Shit Shit Shit (the crowd started howling in laughter by now)
Winnie the Shit, Winnie the Shit.
Shitty Little Shit Shit Shit oh Shit!

Director: Michael*!! Why would you sing the song like that?

Michael: Well, poo is a baby word, and I'm 8 now, so I'm just gonna sing it my way!

Director: OH NO YOU WON'T!

After the laughter died down and Michael's ever-so-responsible mother found out what he did, she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out, causing even more laughter to erupt.

Strangly enough, Michael was not cast.

Dan Muir

*Name changed to protect the innocent. And after 25 years, I have no idea what his name was anyway.

I was at an audition of Assassins. This "actor" gets up and instead of singing a song from a musical, recites the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil". I guess he was trying to scare us. He was scary all right. Particulary his acting, which was all method and no moment. I later found out his acting teacher was one that I loathe. Despite the dearth of male auditionees, he didn't get cast.

So tell me about strange audition experiences or unusual people. For instance:

At a callback for 1776 taking place in the basement of an ancient church in Naperville, somebody did a song reaching some very high, loud notes. And from the bell tower, a big friggin' bat flew into the callback to see what all the noise was about. He zipped around the room a couple of times, was unimpressed and left.

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An actor who likes to be Method showed up for an audition of Other People's Money. He was auditioning for Garfinkle, the heavy, loud, abrasive lead. The actor wore a rumpled suit, hadn't shaved for a couple of days and was rude to the person who handed out the audition forms, who was just there to help, hadn't read the script and had no idea why this bozo was so nasty. But this doesn't measure up to the time he auditioned for Annie Get Your Gun dressed as Sitting Bull. No. I'm not kidding. He really did that.

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I once asked a young woman to read a scene for me. She had listed on the form the parts she would accept, and this wasn't one of them. I knew that and wouldn't have offered her a part she wouldn't take; I just needed someone to read the scene with another actor who hadn't read yet, and I also wanted to see any versatility she might have. She refused to read the scene. Guess who wasn't offered a part of any sort? She had showed me that her Directability Quotient was zero. I mean, if you're balking at a request at an audition, what's going to happen in rehearsals?

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Another actor, being asked to read a scene, said, "What's this Character's Arc?"

CRAIG: He's a salesman. He's glad-handing everybody and wants to control the room by force of his personality.

ACTOR: (Snapping contemptuously) That's not an Arc!

Oops. 'Scuse me for not taking the same acting class you did. I'll give you a basic sketch of the character if you haven't read the show, but I don't have time to discuss the Character's Fucking Arc with you. Just get up and read. Of course, when he did read it was awful. He had shelled out money for classes, had all of the terminology and none of the skill. Couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. I look for potential in people -- he had none. But even if he had, being really rude to the director is not a good way to get cast.

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So what are some interesting audition experiences you've had, either as an actor or a director?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 17, 2006 01:15 PM: Message edited by: Sgt. Bilko ]</font>

This isn't quite so dramatic, but was at a college audition recently where I had to watch everyone's monologue, which included earnest recitations of speeches from Sandra Bullock and Hilary Duff movies. (You know, the classics! Who could forget when Hilary Duff was talking to Chad Michael Murray in the locker room before the big game....) I had no idea movies were fair game. And here I've been wasting my time with musty old play scripts.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sgt. Bilko:

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An actor who likes to be Method showed up for an audition of Other People's Money. He was auditioning for Garfinkle, the heavy, loud, abrasive lead. The actor wore a rumpled suit, hadn't shaved for a couple of days and was rude to the person who handed out the audition forms, who was just there to help, hadn't read the script and had no idea why this bozo was so nasty. But this doesn't measure up to the time he auditioned for Annie Get Your Gun dressed as Sitting Bull. No. I'm not kidding. He really did that.

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I was in that Annie Get Your Gun, and he was cast as Sitting Bull. He did a good job. What was scary was when he occasionally came out of character!

How about the knucklehead who showed up and accompanied himself on 5 string banjo for Godspell? (We Beseech Thee) He wasn't cast.

Hey, wait a minute, that was me!

Quote:

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Originally posted by dstewart24:
Honestly, Actor 'X' in the previous post was not me. I only mention this because it very possibly could have been.

Dennis Stewart

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<font size="2" face="Times, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">I'm not saying I thought it was you, but... [img]smile.gif[/img]

XOXOXOXO

The strangest audition I've ever been to, and one I'm glad I brought someone along to...

I showed up at the director's condo in Glen Ellyn (median family income: $95,332). I'd already had a bit of a strange encounter with him on the phone - he was a little scatterbrained, I just assumed.

I buzz in at his condo, and I turned away from the foyer door to make a joke with my friend. Like a scene out of Jurassic Park, my friend stopped, looked up and breathed an almost inaudible ?Oh, god.? I whirled around.

Mechanically walking towards us was a most disconcerting combination of Michael Jackson and David Hasselhoff. The Director was in his 20?s, tall and muscular, with a Dutch, square face, framed in Jheri curls. He wore a leather jacket for the band Disturbed that was highly reminiscent of Michael Jackson circa ?Thriller,? complete with cheap stretchy baby blue kid gloves ? the kind that children wear. He walked with an arrogantly menacing pace, his chin slightly tucked down, almost glaring through bloodshot eyes.

He invited us in to his apartment. Start creepy music.

I walked into his apartment and immediately the rich smell of musky cologne hit me in the face - I?m sorry, I should say the rich smell of musky cologne poured on every possible surface, and possibly even circulated through the airshafts. The only light in the apartment comes from a yellowish kitchen. His walls were lined with clippings from gossip magazines and pictures of great method actors like Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando. Stanislavski books lined the single bookcase in his sparsely furnished apartment. His carpet was stained and looked like it hadn?t seen the right side of a vacuum in months. The room was darkened by black material shrouding the bay windows. A white door leaned against the black material, blocking out any natural light.

As almost an afterthought, The Director impersonally asked my partner and I to take off our shoes. I glanced at the carpet again, shuddering, and acquiesced. The Director took off his shoes and then his jacket, revealing a second layer of bizarre ? an old, pink wife beater with his name spelled on it, minus one letter, barely covering his massive arms and pectorals. He kept his baby blue kid gloves on. As a second afterthought, he requested that the shoes not be kept by the door, but in the closet. Great?that way they are harder to find when someone comes looking for our dead bodies.

He walked into his kitchen and distantly offered us a drink. We declined. Afterwards, I wonder if I might have accepted a drink, but only on the condition he took a drink first.

I casually asked him to tell me more about the project. He regarded me impersonally, almost like an animal or child, and ignored my request. I asked him again, and he mentioned with a trivial air that the project is still being completed and he can?t really tell me anything about it. He started to play with the camera, pushing buttons and lining it up, all with his baby blue kid gloves still on. I stopped him again, and asked him to tell me exactly what we?d be doing. In a rather standoffish tone, he requested that we slate to the camera (saying our name and what we were auditioning for). He asked for two takes ? the first one normal, and the second to convey that we are very confused and uncomfortable about something. I almost rolled my eyes in irony, but by the time I did the second take, I started to get the feeling we were really going to be axe-murdered. As my friend slates to the camera, I picture The Director watching our audition back as he eats our hard-boiled brains on a T.V. tray. I trembled.

The Director then declared that the three of us would improv a scene where my partner and I were meeting him in his home and were very suspicious and uncomfortable because he seemed very strange. I chirp, ?Is this supposed to be Method or something?? He ignored me and started talking to himself, looking over at the door leaned precariously against his windows, ?I?ll start by?coming in?no wait, this is my place??

It?s at this point that I interrupted and said, ?I don?t think this project is for me?? and got up to leave, turning my back to him.

?Since you?re here,? he started menacingly, ?I wish you?d audition.?

At this point, my friend interrupted and said, ?You realize that the scenario you are asking us to do is what we are experiencing in real life??

?Yeah,? he said indifferently, but perhaps a little confused, looking for additional information. We left. And my friend said he had to take several showers just to wash off the cologne?not to mention the creep.

And - believe it or not, I'm actually excluding additional creep from the audition. My guy remember a lot more: http://kemroll.livejournal.com/21521.html

And to end it all off, the guy sent me videos of himself nekkid and more.

It was horrifying!

xo

Ann Marie