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. 

    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:
    

    “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.”

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