why the audition panel are on your side
If you’ve auditioned before you might be familiar with the sensation of nerves prior to walking in the room to meet the panel. The nerves usually come from the fear of a few things:
Either you feel like:
You’re going to make a fool of yourself
You’re going to forget everything and therefore make a fool of yourself
The panel is going to laugh at you
The panel is going to hate you and ask you to stop mid speech and tell you to leave
This is totally normal. HOWEVER…
I’m here to tell you that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Contrary to popular belief, the panel is never ever against you. They are not there to test you, criticise you, humiliate you or reject you. In fact they are there with the express purpose of solving a problem.
Their problem? They have 20-30 spaces (possibly more) available in their upcoming academic year and you could be one of them. They want you to be one of them. If you solve their problem then they have a full year group ready and waiting for the next year to begin.
You are the answer, the solution to their problem.
Along with this, panels are super friendly. They just are. They are made up of a handful of tutors/directors and graduated or nearly graduated students from the very same course that you’re applying for!
Firstly they want to see your potential, imagination and capability - you have time in front of them purely to do you. To show off. To do your job because hey check it out - you’re already an Actor. You’ve prepared your speeches, dressed appropriately and put aside time to exercise your talent - you’re an Actor. So treat it like doing your job.
Brian Cranston said that this is the way he approached his auditions. It was an opportunity to do his job, to work with likeminded people on a text he liked for a short space of time. It’s not a test or an interrogation. It’s a time for playfulness, joy and exploration. The panel want to see you doing this. They want to see you enjoying yourself and they want you to fix their recruitment problem.
There have been numerous studies done to find the correlation between nerves/anxiety and excitement. The findings were pretty interesting.
If you think about what happens in your body when you get nervous or anxious - heart rate increase, shaking, tight muscles, breathlessness, sweating, blushing etc. Now think about what happens in your body when you get excited. Heart rate increase. Shaking. Tight muscles. Breathlessness. Sweating. Blushing.
Cool right?
So it was found that what happened in your body when nervous was the same thing that happened in your body when you were excited.
So what’s the difference? Well the difference is your mindset. Its the story that you’re telling yourself in your head as these physical sensations are coming up.
If you’re telling yourself ‘I’m going to screw this up. What if they hate me?’ Then you’re bound to interpret the physical sensation as nerves which triggers your mind and body into thinking there is danger and to make you want to run away.
If instead you tell yourself ‘This is super exciting. This is going to be a great experience. I’m really excited to meet them.’ then the likelihood is that you will approach the audition in a more open and playful way.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a difficult process to master. It can be tough trying to convince your mind of something that it believes to be not true. This takes practise and bravery.
The panel want to see what you would be like in a rehearsal or in class - so treat it like that. Rehearse, explore, try things and above all, try to enjoy it.
Remember, you are there to solve the problem and you are just doing your job. Find the joy.