I did several musicals in high school, and took four years of voice lessons, but I haven't done anything performance arts-related since then besides the occasional St. Patrick's Day show. My friend has recently gotten involved in a community theater after not acting for a while, and it looks like the perfect place to get started again. They are doing auditions for a large musical in May and I'm strongly considering auditioning.

Since I don't have a particularly robust resume, is there anything I should do specifically to prepare, besides having a great monologue and killer song? Would taking a workshop be a good idea? (It's really difficult to find workshops for adults which aren't TV/film-oriented in my area.) Run through my monologue or scripts with friends? Read through the book before I go? I feel like my singing is still really sharp but need to figure out a good way to shake the rust off for the acting portion.

I'm going to be talking to my friend to see if she has any tips (she ended up being cast as Maria Von Trapp in the Sound of Music after a similar long absence--not that I'm expecting anything!), especially as it relates to this theater. But I'm interested to hear your thoughts!

Dani

I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I had some good reviews when I was younger and really loved what I did. Having kids kind of pushed my acting aside. They are grown now and I have some more time now and really have been feeling the itch to get back into it.

This is what I'm kind of planning to do next year - take a drama class at the nearby university. I figure that will give me a venue and some brush up lessons, plus as most people in the program are likely to be younger, they surely need some older persons for certain roles.

Good luck, Dani! Wish me the same!

kk~

Dani, Nice to see you back here.

I did some drama in high school and had a two roles in college. One was as a Prince of Russia in "Anastasia" which was about a woman who thought she was one of the Czar's children who survived the Bolsheviks execution of the Czarist Royal Family and spent nearly 50 years trying to prove that she was Anastasia. (This episode was made both into a play and a movie in the 50's/60's.) Subsequent post-mortem DNA testing proved that this "Anastasia" was a fraud.

I met my "Anastasia" at a class reunion a couple of years ago (she went on to become a Public Broadcasting personality in Wisconsin) and we laughed that had there been DNA testing in the era in which we did the play, no one would have even bothered to write the play, LOL.

By college, I mostly gave up theater (I did both on-stage and backstage work) for music, but I did have one role as an on-stage musician, playing violin, in the old Helen Hayes vehicle called "Time Remembered" a translation of Anouilh's "Leocadia."

I guess that when I can no longer play violin to some decent standard, I could become a character actor. .

Jon

How well do you know the show? If you know it back to front, then you're sweet, but if not, research the mickey out of it. Listen to the soundtrack, read the book if you can get access to it, watch the movie version if there is one, and look up the synopsis on Wikipedia. Decide which character you'd be mostly likely to play. Then tailor your entire audition around that character. For example, if you were auditioning for the part of Tracy in Hairspray, you'd pick a pop song from the early 60s or a musical theatre song that sounded similar to one of her songs and that possibly could even be slotted into the show because it tells part of her story. Same with the monologue if you've been asked to prepare one: choose something that is so close to Tracy's character that if they didn't know that it was from something else, they'd think it was part of the show. If it was Hairspray, I'd even wear a cute blouse and a wiggle skirt, like Tracy does, though don't go buying anything special, just pick something from your wardrobe. You would be surprised at how much you look and feel like the character just from doing this kind of preparation. And if you look enough like the character, then it's enough to make the panel look at you twice.

Now for the technical stuff: Practice your song and monologue in front of an audience of family/friends. Find out as much as you can beforehand about whether they will get you to do a cold read or not and if they will, it's probably a good idea to get a hold of the script and run a few key scenes with friends. Even if they don't pick those scenes, you'll have had practice doing scenes from the show anyway.

The more preparation you do, the better your chances are. But bear in mind that some community theatre companies can get very insular and not be willing to take a chance on somebody new, so don't pin everything on getting the role. Use it as an experience to test out how you perform under this kind of pressure.

Chookas!

Helen