Hi all,

My child has tried out for a few auditions, as he's been asking and asking. I agreed to take him to one more audition, but I want to make sure he's ready (he turns 9 years old soon). He still has trouble saying his "r" sound clearly, though it's getting better and people say that he sounds like he's got a NY accent...could this be holding him back? Also, he's totally outgoing at home, but a shy kid in general. He performs local theatre extremely well and loves stage. He takes his acting seriously, but I wonder if that shyness comes across in auditions? Don't know...any advice on the last audition go round? Thx!!

If he has a speech impediment, I would get that fixed regardless if he were acting or not. For the audition question, why not sign him up for a few private coaching lessons?

He's had speech therapy up until Kindergarten. Then the school felt he didn't need it anymore. You really have to be an advocate for your child. He then got speech in 2nd grade. Now the school's taken weeks to see if he needs it, I absolutely have been trying to get him speech help (has nothing to do with acting). I just wonder if the speech issue affects his auditions...thoughts?

To be honest, it probably does, just as my DD's reading disability affects her auditions. We just do our best to work around it, getting sides in advance and working on specific techniques to improve her cold reading.

quote:

Originally posted by Oceanwalker:
Hi all,

My child has tried out for a few auditions, as he's been asking and asking. I agreed to take him to one more audition, but I want to make sure he's ready (he turns 9 years old soon). He still has trouble saying his "r" sound clearly, though it's getting better and people say that he sounds like he's got a NY accent...could this be holding him back? Also, he's totally outgoing at home, but a shy kid in general. He performs local theatre extremely well and loves stage. He takes his acting seriously, but I wonder if that shyness comes across in auditions? Don't know...any advice on the last audition go round? Thx!!

As a young child, he'll probably grow out of his speech difficulties over time. He'll no doubt grow out of his shyness as he grows in experience and becomes a more confident actor, as well. But as to his "NY accent," I'd strongly recommend that you consider a qualified dialect coach to help him remove it if it's highly noticeable.

Often times strong accents will eliminate him from work that require a more non-regional sounding actor, especially national commercials, where strong regional indentification could easily eliminate him from consideration.

www.robertkim.com

Thank you for your honest and most appreciated answers. I kind of thought it might hurt his ability to get callbacks. We're trying to work through it. Thanks again!

Keep plugging away!! As I tell my DD, you can't change who you are. You just have to learn to work with it!

Best of luck to you!

Hey Oceanwalker, I have a similar prob. My 6yo dd is very shy yet she sees her 2 big sisters and little bro go on auditions and go sees so she of course wants to go too. She does have a manger (since she was a baby) who sends her on stuff once in a while and lately I've seen her come out of her shell a little more so I think continuing to take her on auditions(eventhough I think she's too shy to book anything) was a good idea. She has a great personality and is learning how to let go and let it shine. So of course my advice is to continue to take him to auditions!
As for the speech thing I also had a similar experience my now 9yo dd,. She couldn't say any low sounding letters(due to chronic hear infections she couldn't hear them) so she spoke that way. At about 4 1/2 I had her evaluated and they told me she'd grow out and wouldn't give her any speech therapy. My hubby and I worked very hard that summer before she entered kindergarten to get her to use those sounds. And it worked!! So see if you can get him some help and if not try and do it yourself.
Good luck and I'm sorry for rambling on.

Hey Momof4NYC, and everyone else

Thanks for all of your insight. We'll see where all of this goes. I'm going to see if I can get him a few voice lessons before this interview, don't know if it will help, but we'll see...wow, it can get very expensive, very fast! That's why I don't want to make any huge commitments on anything (except speech, which would happen regardless) until his next interview. We'll see, and good luck to all of you! I'll keep you posted.

My acting ds had a severe speech problem and had in-school and private speech therapy for many years. He has done well (now 19) but it was alot of hard work both on his part and ours to advocate for him. Schools are not as aggressive as they should be and typically kids don't grow out of inherent speech differences. It's impossible to tell if it affects auditions cause there are so many variables--so it seems sensible to keep auditioning and keep pursuing therapy as well.

Hi Oceanwalker--
We're going through this same thing right now with my 8 year old dd. She also has difficulty with her "r"s--they sound more like "w"'s. The speech therapist in the past told us that r's are the last letter to develop, and by 9 1/2 -10 it should have corrected itself. We, too, are more proactive, though, as it is a concern to our dd, more than to us. She has had no problem booking NON -speaking jobs (commercials), but we did just recently audition for "Eloise in Paris". Her acting coach said her voice is very "sweet" and young, and as long as she speaks clearly and slowly, can be understood perfectly. Our dd is very outgoing, so that may help as well. We'll see, though. Still working to get her with a therapist.

My 6 yr old dd has same issue her R's sound like W's. Her 2 yr old brothers name ir robert and shell pronounce it as "Wobet" I think this causes a little of her shyness. Shes in 1 st grade and I had to fight the school to get ger evaluated for speech. Regardless she is not intrested inacting but wants to do print work for now but I know what your going threw, good luck it seems to be a relitivaly common thing.