My Worst Audition EVER

Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, who works in a performance field has had a bad audition. Many of my students tell me about auditions they feel like they “messed up” in or didn’t quite do their very best work during, so I wanted to share my story of the very worst audition I have ever had. I share my story in the hope that it reminds new and/or young performers that even us pros have off days and rough auditions.

Now, I had a really bad audition at my very first college audition and a couple of months ago I gave one of my worst performances at an audition in a professional setting, but those don’t compare to the audition I had two and a half years ago - my very first audition in California.

I arrived in California just about 6 months after graduating from college, where I had studied Musical Theatre. I had taken dance, including tap, for the previous 4 years, so when I got to SoCal and saw an audition for 42nd Street, I jumped at the opportunity! It was a professional theater that paid well and had good reviews, so I signed up. I arrived early, as one always should for an audition, I walked in feeling nervous but confident, and I checked in with a very kind older gentleman.

Then the nightmare began. They decided to do the dance call first - tap, of course - so we were herded onto the much-too-small stage and started to learn the combo. Me, being tall and polite, stood in the back to let the shorter people see. This led to me being woefully behind while learning the choreography. I wrongly assumed the choreographer would have us switch lines as most do, but she never did. I couldn’t see her to save my life. What’s worse is that it was a tap combo, meaning the majority of the movements are mostly described with the sound they make, not the official name for the movement - a visual is key.

So, not only can I not see the choreographer, or her feet, but the moves I CAN make out are WAY beyond my skill level…I’m talking “been-tapping-since-I-was-2” level stuff. Now, I do consider myself a moderately skilled dancer, especially tapper, but my goodness I was overwhelmed. I could feel tears welling in my eyes and seriously considered walking off the stage and going home - I knew I was going to embarrass myself. I have never in my life before or since that day felt like the smart choice would be to walk out.

All-in-all we worked for about 20 minutes as a group and then we were split into sets of 3 to perform in front of the rest of the people there (around 60). Of course I am in the first group to go, so I don’t even have the chance to watch someone else do it a couple of times through. The music starts, I get about 2 eight-counts into the combination and stop dancing. That’s right folks, I completely and totally STOPPED MOVING. Ouch. My face reddened and I did my best to finish with the other two dancers and then sulked off to the side. I wanted to curl up and cry.

But now we were onto the singing! Luckily for me they didn’t cut anyone after the dance, or so I thought. I figured the singing is where I could redeem myself. After all, I’ve been singing for over a decade! No way that can go wrong! I wait my turn, walk in feeling a bit ashamed of the performance I gave during the dance call, but holding my head high. I give my music to the accompanist - he is very nice and seems to understand my tempo - I slate, and disaster strikes again. I’m not sure if I miscommunicated my tempo or if we just were not on the same page about what I was going for, but the song was wayyyyy too slow. Even when I tried to drive the tempo forward the pianist stuck to his guns. I tried my best to modify my choices to fit this foreign speed, but he was on a keyboard that I could barely hear. Meanwhile, I got off key AND forgot the lyrics due to all my worrying about the tempo and trying my hardest to strain to hear the keyboard.

I thanked them for their time when really all I wanted to do was apologize for wasting it. I’m sure they looked at my resume and thought I was lying - how could someone who auditioned so very poorly ever get cast? But at that point all I could do was laugh it off. I called my husband to share how hilariously humiliating my evening had been and he laughed with me and reminded me that everyone has off days and rough auditions. I am fortunate that I am typically a very skilled auditioner, but boy oh boy when they are bad, they are HORRIBLE!

Please share your audition horror stories in the comments! People can’t hear enough that is it okay not be perfect every moment of every day!