Hi everyone,
Our current question for our Asking Actors column is "How do you recover from a bad audition?" Do you splurge on a good meal or a new pair of shoes? Take a bubble bath? Rant to a good friend, etc.?

If you'd like to weigh in, please email a brief (no more than four sentences) answer and your headshot to News Editor Lauren Horwitch at lhorwitch@backstage.com.

Your comments and headshot could appear in an upcoming issue of Back Stage.

Thanks,
Lauren

I don't splurge on anything because I am aware that I won't be booking that job and therefore need to save my pennies. Instead, I beat myself up in the car on the drive home and then rethink my choices for most of the evening.

Do the rest of you bathe and buy shoes!!!???

I decided for myself,that you might never know,what did the casting director need,so what might to seem "the bad audition" could turn into the good one and no reason to eat yourslelf's guts just because it didn't went as great as you wanted.Also even a great audition does not promice you a role.Anyway,after any audition I just try to forget about it completely, doing other stuff and if something turnes on right it's always a great suprise for me.

Good answer, Marisha. You don't really know anything until you find out they gave the role to someone else. But if you're really depressed because you just know it was bad, some things that might help .....

Go see your best friend or Mom or significant other, and talk about anything except the audition...

Go do something totally fun that has nothing to do with acting...

Schedule your next audition for someone else immediately, and focus totally on that.....

quote:

Originally posted by Lauren Horwitch:
Hi everyone,
Our current question for our Asking Actors column is "How do you recover from a bad audition?" Do you splurge on a good meal or a new pair of shoes? Take a bubble bath? Rant to a good friend, etc.?

If you'd like to weigh in, please email a brief (no more than four sentences) answer and your headshot to News Editor Lauren Horwitch at lhorwitch@backstage.com.

Your comments and headshot could appear in an upcoming issue of Back Stage.

Thanks,
Lauren

I move on.

Jim

Of course we all move on, and I usually forget about auditions at about the instant I walk over the threshold on the way out. You never do know, and half the time I think I blew it I book and half the time I think I nailed it I don't...
I couldn't resist poking fun at this though! Recovering from a bad audition by buying shoes just sounds so damn decadent! Who can afford that!?!?

Speaking of penniless actors and new shoes, a friend of mine had a casting assistant come up to him after an audition a few years ago and tell him, "You know, the Actors Fund will buy you a new pair of shoes if you need them." he checked it out and apparently it's true. For my own part, I always make sure mine are shined before an audition. People do notice those things.

To actually answer the question, though, I don't really reward myself after a great audition because I know that the best audition in the world still can't overcome a CD who thinks, "He's awesome but looks a little too much like my ex-husband" or "Great voice, but our elevator has a maximum weight of five hundred pounds". Likewise, I don't have many Bad Auditions <tm> but they do occur; most recently when I channeled lyrics from the Gilligan's Island theme into an audition song from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Seriously. Happily, they let me take it again but surprisingly enough I still didn't book the gig even with the correct lyrics.

What I DO do (heh, he said...) is keep a journal of all of my auditions with the when, where, and who for tax records, what I wore, what pieces I did, and most importantly what I feel worked well, what needed more work, and ideas to try with these new pieces for next time. There's always a next time.

That said, I'll happily accept an invitation if any of you want to take me out for ice cream after a great audition! I'll even sing the Gilligan Sneaks In song for you.

quote:

Originally posted by Jackie:
I don't splurge on anything because I am aware that I won't be booking that job and therefore need to save my pennies. Instead, I beat myself up in the car on the drive home and then rethink my choices for most of the evening.

Do the rest of you bathe and buy shoes!!!???

That's what I always wondered about Sex and the City.

Whenever destiny hit, they must have found some money, or printed it.

Because they went shoe shopping.