pensnest | 100 Blogs: Auditions, part 2

The audition is not the only thing that gets you the part.

You have to do it (usually). You have to get up there and throw yourself into this thing you haven't really rehearsed and hope that in the mind-blanking heat of the moment you actually produce what you meant to produce and don't forget your words or whatever.

But the thing is, you can do a good audition and still not get the part.

Sometimes, you don't get it because, while you did a good audition, someone else did a great one. It's… just tough.

Sometimes, you don't get it because although you did a good audition, you don't look right for the part. Perhaps it comes down to physicality, like height—you're too tall to fit against the leading man, or your counterpart is skinny and you are broad, or… anyway.That's harsh, but there's nothing you can do.

More broadly, the directing team are casting a whole ensemble, who have to fit together, and if you don't work in combination with the others... tough.

Sometimes you don't get it because the directing team have seen you in other stuff and don't believe you're up to it, even if you do produce the goods at the audition.

Sometimes someone else has vowed not to do the show unless they get a part, and you've expressed a willingness to be in the chorus.

Sometimes they've worked with you before and vowed never to do so again. Bed, made, lie.

And there are probably others I've forgotten for the moment.

So there are lots of ways you can not get a part, and many of them don't involve not deserving it.

Conversely, you can actually do a bad audition and *still* get the part because… the director's worked with you before and knows you can produce the goods, or everybody else did a bad audition and you're the least of the possible evils, or nobody else wanted the part and it's not important enough to go to enormous lengths to fill, or you look perfect and they think they can work with you, or the directing team have seen you on stage elsewhere and believe you can do better than your audition.

In the way of amateur groups, people will make their own stories about why they did not get The Part, or why someone else got it instead of their favoured candidate. I've known people who simply weren't good enough actors to be cast express the firm belief that the director always picks her favourites. I've seen plenty of people audition for a part that they simply cannot be cast in because they're so wrong for it. I've known the audition panel to just get it wrong*. I've known people to be cast because they do a great audition, who then develop no further and are rubbish in the actual part.

It's a hideous process, but it's necessary, and there are so many reasons, good and bad, why a good audition might not get you the part.

Yeah. I didn't get the part.

* Long ago, but unforgettably, I auditioned for Adelaide Adams in Calamity Jane, a role which seemed to me to require a 25-year-old alto with big tits. I did a good audition, I know I did, but would not have been surprised or aggrieved to lose out to the prettier alto with bigger tits (who got very nervous at auditions).

They cast a 60-year-old soprano. Who was lovely, but—really?