Well, here you are: you've just arrived at your audition - and early, to boot! Now you have time to relax, to go over your lines again, and to freshen up in the potty room. You have read all the juicy tidbits of information on on our website and now you are implementing some of those new tools today. You look great, you feel great ... bring it on!
The monitor calls your name and you confidently enter the audition room. You exchange pleasantries as well as brief introductions. You notice there are two chairs facing the "casting table" and a reader is already seated. You are asked to begin your scene.
You begin your scene with your reader, and as you progress into the scene you realize ... THIS READER IS AWFUL! You can barely hear him/her, there is no eye contact, and worse of all, there is no emotional connection between the two of you.
DON'T PANIC! You have worked on this scene, and you know where the emotional connections are.
DON'T shrink to the level of this bad reader! You must trudge on, imagining that you are getting everything you need from this reader.
DON'T waiver. If you try too hard to connect to this reader, you risk being sucked into his/her low-energy-lack-of-connection vortex, and then you would be doing yourself a great disservice. The "casting people" will see your acting with thoselimitations, and they will assume that THAT is the BEST you can do.
Be prepared in advance for the possibility of an inadequate reader by always rehearsing your material as if your partner is awful. Besides, this kind of communication happens all the time in real life. You are upset about something your significant other did, and when you passionately try to explain it to him/her, he/she SHUTS DOWN. NO NOTHING. But you still go on trying to make them understand ... ! It is the same in an audition with a bad reader. You just have to go on and be passionately engaged in what you are doing, indeed become even more determined to get them to HEAR you, REACT to you, while still being authentic and "in the moment".
