Musical Theatre Audition Tips
Musical Theatre Audition Tips
So, you got a musical audition for Matilda or School of Rock or Evita?!! First stop is to get some musical theatre audition tips – but, first-off – congratulations! You got your foot in the door! That’s awesome! Sometimes one of the hardest parts of getting into a musical is getting an audition; that is unless your willing to join a ‘cattle call’ (open audition – don’t do it! Its a grueling wait!)
Lets talk about preparation
- Know what your song is about and act it appropriately. what musical is it from if it is. If it isn’t, know who wrote it. You may be asked.
- Find a song with a similar genre to the musical you are auditioning for. For example, if you are auditioning for School of Rock, sing a pop or rock song rather than a standard musical theatre song.
Karin Bello.
Singer, Dancer & Actress
(Agent: Eaglestone Management)
- Make sure your song is in the correct key for your vocal range.(You may need to get advice from a vocal coach for this if you are unsure of your vocal range.) There are many music websites like www.musicnotes.com where you can transpose your song to a suitable key, purchase and print up yourself. You need to sing a song that will make you sound phenomenal!
- Choose the best 16 bars to sing. Most musical auditions you will be asked to prepare your best 16 bars. Make sure you have a beginning, middle and end to your 16 bars. It needs to tell a story. You may have a great audition song but can not be cut into 16 bars. Find something else.
- Be familiar with your music. Ask your vocal coach to show you how to read basic music i.e. count bars, know where your 16 bars start including your intro. Your audition pianist will ask you where to start, end and the tempo.
Audition day
- First of my musical theatre audition tips is: do a good vocal warm up. Start off with some lip trills up and down the scale, sirens are good too. Then progress to vocal scales with vowels… A, E, I, O , U
- Make sure your body is warm too even if you are not dancing at your audition. If your body isn’t flexible, how can your vocals be? This means your neck and your face. Make funny faces, open your mouth wide then scrunch it up. Do this a few times. Your face should ache when you finish.
- Get to your audition at least 30mins early. This will allow you to get yourself together and have another look at your music if you need.
Audition time
- Don’t let the nerves get the best of you. You are there for a reason. If they didn’t believe you may be the one, you wouldn’t be there.
- Be polite and friendly. The amount of times I have entered an audition room and the audition panel have said its nice to see a smiley face and asked how they are. They will remember that.
- Where to look?!!! Okay so… back in the day when we used to audition in theatres, we used to look into the dress circle like we were singing to a full theatre. Now we tend to audition in dance studios or specific audition rooms. Don’t look above the audition panels heads and don’t look them directly either. Look at the space between the people in the panel. This gives them the impression of singing to them without looking to aggressive.
- Project your voice, open your mouth and enunciate.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY…HAVE AN ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC MUSICAL AUDITION! YOU WILL NAIL IT! I BELIEVE IN YOU AS DO WE ALL! Perhaps belief is actually the most important of my musical theatre audition tips!
