A Foolprood Method for Getting Cast in Any Show

Step 13: Get Cast Again

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: A FOOLPROOF METHOD FOR GETTING CAST IN ANY SHOW!

NEWLY UPDATED AND REMASTERED FOR THE MODERN ERA!!

NOW WITH TWICE THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT!!!

A Foolproof Method for Getting Cast in Any Show:

  1. Have your parents read you Charles Dickens’ classic holiday novella, A Christmas Carol, every single year from an early age.
  2. Find an audition notice for a performance called A Christmas Carol—Abridged on the Theatre in Chicago website.
  3. Email the production company. In the body of the message, subtly mention that your parents have read you Charles Dickens’ classic holiday novella, A Christmas Carol, every single year from an early age.
  4. Receive a confirmation email that informs you that the audition will consist exclusively of reading sides from the script.
  5. Read that email as: NO PREP WORK REQUIRED. SLEEP IN ON SATURDAY.
  6. Do so.
  7. Still arrive at the theatre way too early. This is your trademark move.
  8. Once again, you are the first audition of the day. No one is ready to see you.
  9. Hang out in a weirdly dingy living room space littered with empty beer cans and prescription bottles.
  10. Let a woman apologize for the state of the theatre and explain that this living room set-up is part of the haunted house experience they are currently putting on for Halloween.
  11. Apparently, they have opted to exploit the much more realistic fears of alcoholism and prescription medicine overdose this year.
  12. Oh, wait, no. There are a bunch of creepy dolls. Never mind.
  13. Fill out an audition form.
  14. Uh oh. The audition form asks you what kind of accents you can do.
  15. Um…
  16. Write, in very faint pencil, “RP, and a bit of cockney.” (NOTE: “RP” stands for “Received Pronunciation,” which has come to mean “standard UK English accent.” Always refer to your English accent as “RP” because it makes you sound like you know what you’re doing. You don’t.)
  17. Also, “a bit of cockney” means that you have watched some Monty Python, and you think that sometimes they do something like cockney, and you can totally do that, right?
  18. You are not right.
  19. Get called into the theatre. The theatre looks like a little girl’s room, except with more decapitated dolls and clown faces.
  20. The first piece of direction you get is, “Don’t sit on the bed. It’s not a real bed.”
  21. “Actually, don’t try to move around the space at all. It’s safer just stand in the corner there.”
  22. Now you are terrified.
  23. Learn that the part you are auditioning for is not just one role, but rather all the male roles in A Christmas Carol minus Scrooge. This production will only have three actors.
  24. This means that you are auditioning for the narrator, the caroler, Fred, Bob Cratchit, Marley’s Ghost, Fezziwig, the Ghost of Christmas Present, old Joe, and the boy at the end who tells Scrooge, “Why, it’s Christmas Day!” You will read for nearly all of these roles multiple times.
  25. You’re going to be here all afternoon.
  26. These parts are going to be very difficult to keep separate. In order to make it easier, just impersonate various actors from the 1984 George C. Scott made-for-TV A Christmas Carol that you used to watch on VHS at your grandparents’ house.
  27. This is, by the way, the definitive film version of A Christmas Carol, and don’t you dare say otherwise.
  28. And you can watch the whole thing on YouTube!
  29. If this blog post is late, it’s because I’m watching this whole thing on YouTube.
  30. AHHHH! TINY TIM IS A ZOMBIE IN THIS VERSION!

  31. Zombie Tiny Tim

    Happy Halloween. You will never sleep again.

  32. Where was I?
  33. Right, this whole audition takes a really long time, but that’s good. That means they like you. At one point, they will give you the option of leaving, but don’t you dare. Insist on continuing to read the same parts over and over as they test out different Scrooges. The more face time you can get with the director, the better.
  34. Unless your face looks like this:

    Zombie TIny TIm Again

    “I might be a horrible nightmare child, but I still have more film credits than Joe does.”

  35. You can go home after about three hours.
  36. Get a call the next night from the director.
  37. YOU GOT THE PART(s)!
  38. HURRAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!
  39. GETTING CAST IN THAT FIRST SHOW WASN’T A TOTAL FLUKE!!!
  40. OR, AT THE VERY LEAST, TWO TOTAL FLUKES HAVE HAPPENED IN YOUR FAVOR!!!!!
  41. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
  42. Woo!
  43. Whew.
  44. It’s going to be a real stretch to get to fifty steps.
  45. Um, Merry Christmas?
  46. “And God bless us, every oooarRRGHHHH!!!!!”
  47. “AARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!”
  48. “MARGGGGUGUGGGGGGGgggggggg…”
  49. “braaaaaiiiiinnnnnnsss…”

  50. “And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, is STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU.”

    “And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, is STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU.”

A Christmas Carol—Abridged runs from November 28th to December 21st at the Dream Laboratory in Lincoln Square. Buy tickets here.

Step 7: Get Cast

I have been cast in a show.

Applause break.

Since I know that getting cast is the main objective of every aspiring actor, I am going to walk you through this step very carefully. Every little detail might be crucial to replicating my success, so I don’t want to glaze over anything. In fact, I’m going to break down this post into fifty micro-steps that, if followed exactly, should act as a foolproof method for getting cast in any show.

You ready?

Here it goes…

 A Foolproof Method for Getting Cast in Any Show:

  1. Find an audition notice for a production of Twelfth Night on the Chicago Artists Resource website on July 24th, 2014.
  2. Email the production company to reserve an audition time.
  3. Receive an email confirming your audition time and informing you that instead of preparing a monologue, you must prepare one of three Shakespearean sonnets and perform it as if you were reciting the poem for a lover.
  4. Read the email and then forget about it for a week.
  5. Check the email again the night before the audition, panic, print out the sonnets, and then go to sleep.
  6. Wake up the next morning and pick out the one sonnet that you understand (mostly).
  7. Try to memorize it on the bus.
  8. Fail.
  9. Arrive at the theatre way too early. Instead of going in, walk around the block several times before sitting down on a park bench next to a playground.
  10. Recite the sonnet aloud ten to fifteen times, cursing whenever you screw up.
  11. Ignore the worried looks you are receiving from the parents of the nearby children playing on the playground.
  12. Start sweating profusely.
  13. Go into the theatre.
  14. No, not that theatre. There’s a show going on in there and the house manager is not pleased with you.
  15. Oops.
  16. Go to one of the theatres upstairs.
  17. Ask the lady at the bar upstairs about where you might find the Twelfth Night auditions.
  18. She doesn’t know.
  19. Sit on a couch and wait.
  20. Oh, here’s someone. The stage manager?
  21. Yes, the stage manager. You’re still too early, and you’re the first audition of the day, so the director has not yet arrived.
  22. Wait some more.
  23. Here’s the director. “You’re early,” he remarks. You confirm that this is the case. “Well, I guess we’ve got some extra time. Are you ready to go now?” You say yes.
  24. WHAT? Why did you say that? You’re not ready! You’re not ready at all! How does the sonnet go? “Not from the stars does my judgment…” No, wait, “do I my judgment… pick?” No, “do I pick my judgment,” right? No?
  25. Walk into a small theatre off a hallway behind the bar.
  26. “No, it’s pronounced ‘Klane.’ Like ‘main.’ It’s German.”
  27. Recite the sonnet. Get, like, a third of the lines mixed up.
  28. Apologize.
  29. Have the assistant director tell you to stop apologizing.
  30. Try to do the sonnet again, but this time, make it even worse.
  31. Let the director give you some advice.
  32. Don’t listen to the advice. Just do it again, but this time glancing down at the sheet that you printed out last night and crumpled up in your pocket.
  33. The director and the assistant director are trying to help you, but this is going nowhere fast.
  34. Do it one last time, but have the director cut you off halfway through and tell you that he’s seen enough.
  35. Walk out of the theatre, dejected.
  36. Throw your crumpled sonnet sheet at a garbage can outside.
  37. Miss.
  38. Are going to just litter like that? Pick it up, you monster.
  39. Place it in the garbage can like an adult.
  40. Receive an email later that day from the production company saying that, “We really enjoyed your work. Unfortunately, we will not need you for callbacks.”
  41. Mope around for a week.
  42. Receive another email from the Twelfth Night director. He apologizes for the wording of the previous email, saying that, although he did not need you at callbacks, he would still like to offer you the role of Captain/Officer/Priest and Sir Andrew Aguecheek understudy.
  43. Do a little dance.
  44. Wait for a couple of hours. You don’t want to seem desperate.
  45. Ah, who are you kidding? Email the man, for God’s sake!
  46. You’ve been cast!
  47. You’ve really been cast!
  48. HURRAY!
  49. HUUUURRRRRAAAAYYYYYYYYY!
  50. I really want this to be 50 steps, so, like, get a milkshake or something. Doesn’t a milkshake sound good? Milkshake. Yum.

So there you go. How to get cast. Right there, in plain, simple English. Pretty great, huh?

Don’t worry, though, this blog is far from over.

Far, far from over…

 

And if you want to see me in a show, I’ll be in a production of Twelfth Night with Leftend Productions that has performances every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in October at the Den Theatre in Wicker Park. To see me as Sir Andrew, aim for the weekend of 10th-12th. I’ll provide more information when tickets go on sale. In the meantime, feel free to donate to Leftend’s Indiegogo campaign so we can have a set, because sets are good and THEATRE ISN’T FREE, PEOPLE!