Audition Monologues: Sure way to leave a bad impression.

 Let’s say you auditioning and you’ve successfully used the previously discussed nonverbal interactions to work your way through your monologue. That means that the casting director is engaged and you still have his or her attention. They have found your performance believable and you have captured their interest.

Here’s where you can blow it.

You say your last line and then you cut and run. You precipitously break contact with your visual mark, drop your character and scurry from the performance area. If you’re doing a second monologue, you wouldn’t scurry from the performance area but you are likely to forget to establish a new visual mark, summon up the new character for the second monologue and sense when they’re ready for the first line.

Even though you’ve done a good performance, your hasty exit calls everything into question. It confuses the casting director. It’s like you flipped off a switch and suddenly they have no access to you. Unfortunately, this final impression is the one that’s likely to stick because it seems so contradictory to what’s come before.

How does one avoid blowing it? 

Simple. Say the last line of your monologue. Sense if they received it. Let the nonverbal interaction continue as you mentally bring your performance to a close with a response that signals you’ve finished. Once this nonverbal moment plays out, you break with your visual mark and look downward. Looking down is like the final curtain on your performance and leaves a clear impression that you’ve finished.

This final nonverbal moment has the same potential to impress as the nonverbal moment that precedes the first line of your monologue. It is a powerful way to bring a sense of completeness to your performance.

Next… Good monologue. Bad audition.  

Audition Monologues: Monologues should be banned.

Actually, it's not so much monologues that should be banned. It's how actors think about monologues that should be banned.

Since the actor is doing all of the talking, it's easy to forget that a monologue is supposed to play like a conversation (dialogue). Because there's no verbal interaction between you and the person that you're talking to (the casting director), it's easy to end up talking to no one in particular.

Have you ever been trapped in a conversation with someone who's boring you to tears? As they're droning on you feel that you could scream in their face and they wouldn't seem to notice? This is exactly how the casting director feels.

Thinking monologue instead of thinking dialogue shuts down nonverbal interaction with the people you're auditioning for and also denies them access to you as a person.  On the other hand, if you think of what you're saying as a dialogue, than you experience the nonverbal interactions common to a conversation and the casting director feels engaged by what you're saying.

There is no technique to making your monologue play like of a dialogue. It's about thinking. How you think about it is how it will happen. If you're thinking monologue, you will lose your audience. If your thinking dialogue, you will engage and hold their attention effortlessly.

Next… Best way to leave a bad impression.

Monologue Auditions: Why say it if no one is listening?

Our culture is primarily verbal. Everyone talks everyday and we talk a lot. As soon as you meet someone, you either say something to them or they say something to you.

In a functional conversation where both parties are really talking “to” each other the flow of the verbal interaction is not guided by the content of the words. It's being guided by high-speed, nonverbal interactions (“sensing”). These fleeting events are seldom noticed on a conscious level. Before every utterance you automatically sense if the person you're talking to is ready to hear you speak. When you sense they are ready, you speak. This all happens in fractions of a second. If this doesn't happen, they literally will not catch what you’re saying and you'll have to repeat it.

As soon as you've spoken to them another nonverbal interaction occurs. You automatically sense if they've heard what you've said. If you sense they didn't get it, you'll repeat what you've said. Observe two people in conversation and you will see these two crucial nonverbal interactions at work. Without these interactions virtually any conversation will fall apart.

Let's put these two nonverbal interactions to work in the context of doing a monologue.

You've taken the stage and located your visual mark. As you are experiencing your way through the brief nonverbal moments before you speak, you are also sensing when your viewers are ready to hear you speak. As soon as you sense that they're ready, let the line happen. Once you've spoken the line, sense if they're received it. While you're sensing if they've received it, you're also sensing when they will be ready for your next line.

With the first couple of lines it's likely to take your viewer a second or two to be ready. During those lines they are acclimating to your presence, your vocal quality, look, etc. By the third or fourth line they've acclimated and will become ready to hear your next line more quickly than the first couple of lines. This means that the pace will quicken as you move through the rest of your lines. However, regardless of the pace, you should continue sensing when your viewers are ready for your next line and if they received your last line, and you should do so with every line you speak.

Next… Monologues should be banned.

Monologue Auditions: It's just talking!

What is a monologue really? It's just a person “talking”. However, the action of talking is far more about what's going on experientially between you and the person you're talking to than it is about the words you are saying. The words are a byproduct of the human interaction, not the cause of it.

When you start work on a monologue you have the words that will be said but you don't have the nonverbal interactions implied by those words. What you get from the script can indicate thought patterns, emotional responses, physical business, etc. but those to are also a byproduct of the nonverbal interaction between you and the person you're talking to.

So what exactly is this “interaction” and where do you find it.

Nonverbal interaction is the simplest form of human communication but it is also the most profound. It automatically happens when you find yourself in the presence of another person. If you're in a room by yourself and someone enters, you can feel it kick in. As soon as you sense them, what you are experiencing changes to include them. In turn this nonverbal interaction opens the way for all other kinds of interaction; physical, vocal, verbal, etc.

“Sensing” the people in the room is a prime example of nonverbal interaction. The words spring from this interaction. With out it the words will seem like an impersonal recitation. Your audience will feel that you are talking at them rather than to them. No one likes to be talked at, including casting professionals.

If you're finding this difficult to grasp, it's not because it's complex. It's because it simple. Let me give you a specific example of how sensing works with regards to performing your monologue.

Next: Why say it if no one is listening?

Monologue Auditions: The line that has sunk a million auditions.

The reason why the first line of most monologues “crash and burn” is because the line seems to come out of nowhere. In other words, there has been a failure to capitalize on the nonverbal resources that I've been writing about in the past several posts.

In most auditions the interview ends, the actor goes into a kind of mental fog and drifts into the performance space. They don't establish their physical presence or visual mark. They project little or no sense of character. The only thing they are sure of is their first line and they go for it like a drowning man grasping for anything that floats.

No matter how well you speak the line, it will seem false because there is no human context for what is being said. The line plays like a flat recitation because that's what it is. Once this happens, you are “screwed” (pardon my French) for the following reasons.

Since you were not sensing when your audience was ready for your first line, you're not likely to sense when they're ready for your second line. So, you blurt that line out too. Because you never established contact with your audience, your third, forth and fifth line play with the same painful artificiality. Effectively, your audition is over.  In the old days of the theatre the director would have been yelling “Next!” Unfortunately, that tradition is no longer in use and you are condemned to keep trudging to your last line even though you know you are toast.

I can hear you thinking, “But what if I do recover from a bad first line.” As unlikely as this may be, it is not impossible. This can limit the damage but it also creates an uncertainty for the casting director. Because your first line was blown, they may not trust your recovery. Maybe you just got lucky. It calls the consistency of your skills into question.

Next… It's just talking!

Audition Monologues: Power of the Nonverbal

Getting to your mark in the performance space and finding your visual mark is nonverbal action. As such, it can either work for you or against you depending upon how you use it.

Most actors I've seen in auditions don't use the nonverbal at all. They treat their entrance into the performance space like a necessary evil that stands between them and saying their first line.

As mentioned in the previous post, you should be “sensing” your audience as you move through these functions. These nonverbal actions also provide an excellent opportunity for summoning up your character for the monologue.

Both sensing and going into character culminate in a short nonverbal moment before you say your first line. A lot can and should happen in the brief three to five seconds before you speak, so let's breakdown what goes on in that silence.

The most important thing to be doing is sensing your audience because you want your first line to land when they're ready to hear it. This will give your first utterance believability and impact. If you don't grab your audience with your first line, it's going to be far more difficult to grab them with you're second line. When the first line doesn't land well their attention begins to wane instantly.

During these nonverbal moments you should also be responding to the person that you're supposed to be talking to in the context of your monologue. This response (or short series of responses) allows you to engage the casting director's attention even before you've said your first line. Your response(s) orients your viewers in the world of the character and is absolutely essential in setting up your first line.

All kinds of studies have proven that you form an impression of a person that you're meeting for the first time in mere seconds. In the case of a monologue audition the casting director is forming an impression of you as an actor in those precious seconds before you speak that first line. If you don't make an impression before you speak, you're not likely to make one after you start speaking. Establishing yourself nonverbally is absolutely essential to doing an impressive monologue audition.

Next… The line that's sunk millions of auditions.

Audition Monologues: Who am I really talking too?

Even though you’re not looking at them, you are talking to the people in the room.

The usual retort is, “How can I be talking to them, if I’m not looking at them.” I’ve got news for you. In your day-to-day existence, you rarely have direct visual contact with people when you’re talking to them. You sense their presence. You sense when they’re ready to hear you speak and then you say what you have to say. This all happens automatically so you usually don’t notice it.

This sensing is the important part. In life this happens instantaneously and at very high speed. It’s so fast you don’t even realize that it’s happening. You reflexively know when they’re ready to hear whatever you have to say and you say it.

So, even though you may be looking at the visual mark, you are sensing the people in the room. Think of it as a kind of sonar. You don’t have to be looking at them to sense what’s going on with them. You can tell when they’re ready to hear what you have to say and then you say it.

This especially applies to the first line of your monologue. You’ve made it to the mark in the performance space. You’ve located a visual mark. Ideally as you’ve been doing these two functions you’ve also been “sensing” the people in the room.

Before you speak there is a “nonverbal moment”. This moment is perhaps the most important moment of your performance. This is where you grab them or you lose them.

Next… Power of the Nonverbal