Wizard of Oz Audition

   

 For the ‘Wizard of Oz’ auditions I started by looking at the full script we were given. I did this to gain a better grasp of the material, as we knew that this adaptation was very different to the movie and is probably truer to the source material, the book ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ by L. Frank Baum. Nonetheless, I did look at the movie for ideas on how to further my acting, namely in terms of how to move and for more insight into the character of the ‘Tinman’. From this I learnt that the ‘Tinman’ was a kind, soft soul, he's quite quiet and a bit timid, all he wants is a heart in order to feel these emotions.

We had the weekend to prepare for our auditions and I took the time to ask my family to watch me perform my monologue. I find this helps me, to perform my audition piece in front of others, because I then don’t become so nervous and in fact feel more confident in front of others. My aunt, Sophie, in particular watched and helped me prepare the night before my audition. As she is also an actor, she is able to see things and give advice the other members of my family might not be able too.

Finally it was the day of my audition, it was one of the earliest times available, which I do prefer. Being able to perform my audition early doesn’t allow me to overthink and mess with myself too much beforehand. Just before I went in I was pacing up and down the corridor in worry, my classmate Charley was able to come around the corner and helped me to calm down. I really appreciated this, as I felt much calmer when I went in. Once I was in the room for my audition Kelly proceeded to ask me why I wanted this character. For me I wanted this character because it would be a challenge due to all the physical movement and playing a compassionate character isn’t something I have previously explored.

Overall, I thought my audition went well, my performance went how I wanted it to go and hit all the marks I had in my head. Kelly and Kane themselves both seemed to like my interpretation of the character, so I am glad my preparation paid off. When I came out of the room I remember thinking to myself that it went well and that I couldn’t have done better in the moment than I had. This isn’t something that I felt too often in previous auditions so it was great feeling to have. I felt that I had had a successful day.

Nonetheless, this wasn’t my only audition only the first round, during our second round we were participating in some chemistry reads. In my audition I was paired with Latoya, Emmie and Alan. I thought that the audition itself went very well, I thought Latoya was amazing as ‘Dorothy Gale’ and knew that she had to be one of the casts ‘Dorothy’. We had three different casts this year due to the large number of students in our two years’ worth of classes. As a group I though that we did really well, we didn’t have much to do in the audition but we had to as a group show our emotions as ‘Dorothy’ left to go back to Kansas. We all acted upset and said one line each and felt that we had all done well. As a group we did well together and all had fun playing our characters, I can’t wait to see who I am going to be working with.