posted
Guess what, I am having my first audition ever next Saturday! It's for a stage play called 'A man named Judah.' They are going to play this about 8 times in March and April next year. We will get a part of the text and will have to improvise, so no practising in advance. I even do not know for which role.
Any advice? And I know this is a small chance, but does anyone of you happen to know this play? I searched the Internet, but couldn't find it. It is quite old, I found a reference in the antiques department of a theater bookstore, but they didn't have it for sale anymore.
And...Monday I have a job interview or rather another kind of audition, it's a small job (12 hours a week) at a local primary school. Playing the piano at the dancing lessons. They asked me to come over to the lessons on Monday, to meet the children and have a look at how things are done and afterwards we'll talk. Yay!
Posts: 1247 | Registered: Apr 2000
| IP: Logged |
I can't give you anymore advice than to just try and read up on the play, getting as much info on it as you can......
Posts: 1789 | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
The only advice I can give is to overact. Make it as big as you can. In my limited experiences, stage directors feel that if you are too big they can bring you down, but if you are too understated it may be because you don't have the personality to pull off a more dramatic interpretation. My tendency is to be too subtle, and to act more through vocal inflection and not bombast, which would be better suited to film acting, but I have discovered that this has held me back in stage acting.
I've not heard of the show . . . let us know how it goes!!
As far as the job, if they are bringing you in to meet kids, it sounds like they have already made up their minds that they want you!
posted
It all went very well today! Despite the traffic jam I was in time (pff). The school was really terrific. Beautiful building with silly corners and round classrooms and a lot of wood and windows in the roofs. The room where the lessons were was very spacious, with a large wooden dance floor and a stage. It's a kind of a special public school. They have added all kind of creative subjects to the normal subjects children have in primary school. (They also have a highschool, by the way. I didn't know that until I checked their website, it wasn't in the advertisement). The first lesson I only watched the children excercise (this group were children of about 10 years of age) with the teacher. They call these dancing lessons 'euritmics', it's a very rare subject to teach in our country. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I liked it. The teacher told me she has worked all over the world. Most of the time in the US. So is this a familiar subject to you all? The second lesson I improvised on the dancing of the children. Those were only 6 years old and the exercises were much easier than what the other group did, so it wasn't too hard to do. After that the teacher had her lunch break, and we talked. She is German by the way, very nice person and her Dutch is very good. She told me she really liked what I did and all. But she is seeing a lot of other applicants this week, so I am not sure yet. I hope I get this job, I didn't even know such jobs existed! Imagine, the two things I like doing most in the world are being with children and playing the piano (ok, and reading) and there is this job where I could have both! On Mondays, we'll work with the primary school children and on Tuesday with highschool children. With the smaller children, my task would be to support their dancing with music and I'll have all freedom in my choice of it. With the highschool children, it is kind of the other way around. I play the song they have chosen and they follow the music.
Thanks again for the support. Good advice on the audition Icarus, I'll keep that in mind. And Anne Kate, I just have to say this: You really have this special talent for using exactly right words, words that somehow stick in your mind. I am referring to 'may grace be with you', to me this is such a beautiful sentence, I was thinking about it all the time while driving over to the school. I was very relaxed when I got there despite the terrible traffic, so thank you so much ((((Anne Kate)))).
Posts: 1247 | Registered: Apr 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Do you mean eurythmics? Like, the art of interpreting musical compositions by rhythmical, free-style bodily movement? We call that interpretive dance.
posted
No, we never did it. I've seen it done, though. Mikhail Baryshnikov did a tour a few years ago and of course, up till recently, there was always the obligatory interpretive dance at the Acadamy Awards. Mostly, it seems a bit odd to me, but I'm a classical kind of girl, myself.
quote:The other great pioneer of the expressive or interpretive dance, later called modern dance, was Isadora Duncan. Born into a semirespectable San Francisco family, she too tried the commercial stage but soon began to interpret serious music in her own way. Appearing barefoot, in Greek-inspired tunics, on a platform with simple drapes for a backdrop, she created a sensation in Europe. She developed a system of training children in a "natural" style of dancing. Although Duncan's American appearances were clouded by her outspoken socialist sympathies and by her audiences' lingering puritanism, her uninhibited approach to dance as an art inspired generations of American dancers.
posted
Just got a phone call. I am not getting the job. I don't feel very sad right now. It was a good experience. I amazed myself by being so relaxed, so I know I probably did the best I could. No feelings like 'I should have (not) done this or said that'.
Ok. Still this audition to go. I'll put my mind on that.
Kayla, thanks for the quote. I can imagine what you mean by 'odd'. Somehow when children do things like this, it doesn't seem odd to me though. They really liked it, I could tell. Anyway, I think this was the one and only experience I had and will ever have with eurythmics.
Posts: 1247 | Registered: Apr 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
<<<<<ginette>>>>>
![[Wave]](graemlins/wave.gif)
![[The Wave]](graemlins/thewave.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Mostly, it seems a bit odd to me, but I'm a classical kind of girl, myself. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Just got a phone call. I am not getting the job. 
