An Excercise in Humiliation.

Sometimes a system conspires against every one's best intentions. A few days ago I went to an audition for a production of CAMELOT with the New York Philharmonic. It was a chorus call, which means that you sign up in advance for a slot to sing 16 bars of music in front of someone from the show. The audition was held in a studio off the beaten audition track, downtown, and I was hopeful that there would be a light turnout. I was wrong. The fact that some NYC theatre heavy hitters are involved convinced over two hundred Equity actors to attend the audition which was held in a small, hot, old building. Temperatures, literally and figuratively, rose quickly.

Matters became worse as it soon became apparent that there was simply no time-- only four hours between 3 and 7 P.M.-- to see all the men. The schedule of the creative team allowed only this one day, so the only alternative was to "type" actors. The process is: the actors file into the room in groups of ten, stand in front of a table where the music director and associate casting director are seated, and they decide who can audition based on their appearance. Obviously, this is a dehumanizing experience for the actors and eliminates any element of talent winning you a job. It's simply a function of how many actors are looking for work in New York. Even the team holding the audition apologized for the need to use this system.

I want to stress that I'm not blaming anyone for the situation. The creative team used the only option available to them under the union rules in that situation. Many actors left disappointed and unseen. If I knew of a better system, I would suggest it. Vigorously. However, when large numbers of actors meet the limited schedules of creative teams, there is never a great solution.

The end result in this situation was that somewhere over half of the actors were "typed" out and sent home. I was lucky enough to be kept and had a good audition experience, although at the time of writing I have no idea if anything will come from it. I simply thought this was a good episode to relate to people to give them some insight into the day-to-day life of actors. I watched some of my friends sent home and had some shadow of "survivor's guilt" even though it was beyond my control.

Think of these stories the next time you see a show. Often, the actors in the corner have traveled just as bumpy a path to get there as the stars. Sometimes more so.