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Peer Reviews
TAL Unified Auditions Need More Rehearsal Entire contents are copyright © 2008 A.S. Waterman. All rights reserved.
"Know your audience" — it's the watchword of every director. When the audience is a roomful of directors, the task would therefore seem simple: know oneself. However, that was not in evidence at Theatre Alliance of Louisville's Unified Auditions, held on Saturday, May 10, at Jefferson Community & Technical College's Vocational Technical Institute Building. Theatre Alliance of Louisville (TAL) had a great idea: pick one convenient date and hold one huge audition, wherein any actor who so desired could be seen and heard by as many theatre companies as wished to participate. It took a couple of years to work the kinks out. Initially, auditioners had to repeat the same monologue ad nauseum in a whole slew of separate rooms. Then some theatre companies cut their stay short, much to everyone's chagrin. This year, the TAL organizers made great strides — but they still have a long way to go. Why is theatrelouisville.org reviewing an audition? Well, for the same reason that we review shows: to advise people whether to attend, and to offer the production team some ways to improve. Just since Saturday, I've been asked many times by theatre people whether they should go next year. Apparently, a lot of them missed it this time, and with good reason. The timing couldn't have been worse. Seven shows went live last week, and six more are opening this week, with the TAL audition in the middle. People were just too busy. In spite of all that, the event got a good turnout. Sixteen theatre companies were represented, and they heard 48 auditioners that morning. If those people committed elsewhere had attended, the event would have gone from chaotic to unmanageable. As it was, the morning proved to be less try-out than trying. Directors hate to wait, and they hate to have their time wasted; yet they were kept sitting idle for an hour, and one that contained only two minutes of useful content, before the program started. After being thus misled as to the start time, the opening was further delayed by the search for an audio hookup for the accompanist's keyboard synthesizer. (It's unfortunate that they eventually found one. Although he may be a good musician in some other capacity, the poor man had no idea how to accompany a vocalist, and thus rendered most of the singers impossible to evaluate.) Finally, between 10:00 a.m. and noon, the 48 auditioners were shuffled through for a two-minute presentation each. Among the theatre reps, even those not desperately in need of a "bio" break had reached the mental saturation point long before the final group trailed out. Confusion reigned among the auditioners as well. "Not everyone knew to bring 16 headshots and resumes," says Cristina Martin, who worked at the registration table along with several people from Little Colonel and one from Specific Gravity. She explains, "Apparently, some of the announcements telling people of the auditions mentioned this number, some said 11, and some people claimed not to have seen any number at all, showed up with one or none, and were left wandering around anxiously inquiring about the nearest Kinko's." Kudos to the registration team for making order out of chaos! They came up with a system of numbering actors, information sheets, headshots and resumes, which kept the line moving. The registration team's effort would have been even more effective if they'd been given some simple office equipment, such as paper clips and a stapler, but it still made the difference between an event and a lost cause. As to the fate of those 48 sets of photos and resumes, the prognosis is not good. These are costly items, and yet most will be filed away, misplaced or discarded long before most of the theatres start casting again in August or September. Wouldn't it make more sense to hold the mass audition then, as well as to place the actor profiles online, where they won't be lost, mangled or mismatched? It would also be better to have vocalists sing a capella to begin with, as it allows us to determine whether they can stay on pitch. And needless to say, a better-paced program — one that starts on time and has both bio and sanity breaks — should be a given. Were the TAL Unified Auditions a success despite all of the missteps? Probably. This is still a unique and landmark event, one that improves every year and accomplishes its stated goal of introducing actors to theatre groups and vice versa. It also allows reps from various theatres to sit together in a room and talk with one another. That is a good thing. Whether the day was more hit than miss depends on one's tolerance for snafus, as well as whether one was lucky enough to find what one was looking for. Perhaps the best resolution is to consider the event as an audition for an audition. It merits a callback, even though it needs to rehearse and study up in the meantime. Thanks, TAL. We'll see you next year.
TAL Unified Auditions Theatre Alliance of Louisville theatrelouisville.org/theatreallianceoflouisville/
Posted May 12, 2008
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