The auditions for this year's fall play were held this week. They began on Tuesday, and ran until the Friday callbacks. There were lots of new faces at the auditions for The Importance of Being Earnest, so I thought I might share something.
At the beginning of the auditions, we sign up. We give our name, student email, OSIS (student ID) numbers, and the number of cuts we have. We have a "one-cut policy," which means that if a student has any detentions they have to satisfy, they cannot be a part of after-school activities, like clubs or student productions. Most often, since the fall play auditions occur so early in the year, no students have any cuts to report.
While everyone signs in, the directors pass out sheets giving a brief overview of the characters and plot. So once everyone has signed in, the sign-in sheet is given to the director. By this point of the year, the junior and senior directors (last year's sophomore and senior directors) have picked a new sophomore director. When the sheet comes around to them, they begin to pick people to read sides, portions of the script showcasing a few characters, and the three of them perch themselves, observant. Generally, a side is a few pages long, so the initial audition takes a good chunk of time.
The directors pick a side, give context for the scene, and rotate actors into and out of the scene. Then, once they think they've seen enough, we all move onto the next side, and begin the process of rotating actors and into and out of the side. This continues a few times. Sometimes, this process is disrupted if people have to leave early, most often to catch a bus. In that case, we move onto the next side and go back to it.
Once the primary round of auditions are over, the directors might want to see more of some of the candidates. In this case, that group of actors that the directors want to see attend a callback, on the Friday of the same week.
During callbacks, people are called to read sides again. These sides may be recycled from the primary auditions, or they may be new sections of the script. In addition, all actors are asked to perform a monologue of their characters. Sometimes, these monologues are taken directly from the script. Other times, they are modified from a dialogue that they dominate most of.
From there, the cast list is sent out over the weekend, typically on Sunday night.
And that, in a nutshell, is Fall Play auditions.
