For audiences, theater performances start when the lights go down and the curtains open. For the cast, crew and directors, the show begins weeks or months before with preproduction meetings and auditions.
The Lost Flamingo Theatre Company and Tantrum Theater are two of the performing arts outlets for students at Ohio University. LFC is a student organization, while Tantrum is a professional company.
LFC produces four shows every semester: a musical, a drama, a comedy and a dramedy. Tantrum does two shows each academic year.
LFC’s shows are announced leading up to the beginning of the semester, so students can start thinking about what they are interested in auditioning for before the first general body meeting on the Tuesday of the first week of classes. Auditions for the shows typically occur Wednesday and Thursday evenings of the same week.
Michael Zarefoss, a junior studying animation and the director of “Macbeth” with LFC this semester, described the basics of LFC’s auditions.
“We have people wait in a room who are interested in being a part of a show,” Zarefoss said. “They just sit there, and they fill out this form that we give them, just going over some basic information about them, what sort of roles they're interested in, what their schedule looks like, any trigger warnings they might have an issue with.”
The form asks things to help directors know whether a role will work for the person auditioning. Some of the other questions include what genders and sexualities they are comfortable portraying, what content they are not comfortable with and for the musicals, what their vocal range is.
For the actual audition, students are asked to prepare a one-minute monologue. If interested in the semester’s musical, they also need to prepare 30 seconds of a song.
Samantha Fanger, a sophomore studying media production and director of “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors” for LFC, said audition monologues for LFC come from a wide array of media.
“People have read from diaries,” Fanger said. “People have read text messages, sometimes you do an actual monologue, and it never has to be memorized.”
After the two nights of auditions, the directors and assistant directors for each show decide who they would like to bring in for a second round, known as a callback, to focus on one role. The callback list and schedule are sent out, and they are done on Saturday.
“After seeing all the different callbacks and seeing who we think would be most suitable for which role, we basically have a little director showdown, as we call it, where we go over who wants (which actor) and for what (role),” Zarefoss said. “If multiple people want the same person for specific roles, we then discuss it a little bit and we cross reference it with the person.”
That night, after the director showdown, the casts for each show are announced.
With Tantrum being a professional theater company, the casting process looks different from LFC.
“Auditions for Tantrum Theater start here at Ohio University,” Ellie Clark, the artistic director of Tantrum, wrote in an email. “Each semester, we hold what are called ‘Generals’ or general auditions inside the School of Theater. Tantrum takes part in these general auditions. These auditions are modeled after ‘Open Calls’ that are standard practice for (Actors' Equity Association) theaters.”
Clark said the AEA is a labor union in the United States for professional stage actors and stage managers.
At auditions, there are three or four shows students are up for roles in, only one of which is a Tantrum show. The auditions take place the semester before the show will be performed, giving the cast much longer to rehearse than in LFC.
Each student auditioning receives a timeslot during which they perform their materials. Clark said every show results in different materials being prepared.
“For folks wanting to be considered for musicals, we ask for a song in the style of the show and a monologue,” Clark wrote in an email. “For non-musicals, we ask for two contrasting monologues. If we are producing a Shakespeare play, we would strongly recommend one of those pieces be Shakespearean text.”
Following generals, Tantrum creates a list of which actors it would like to call back. Actors who are called back are given specific scenes to prepare in advance for the roles they have been called back for.
For generals, audition timeslots are prioritized for students pursuing Master's of Fine Arts, Bachelor's of Fine Arts and Bachelor's of Arts in theater performance. Auditions are then opened to all other College of Fine Arts students, and then to students outside the college.
Along with the student actors, Tantrum casts a few Equity performing artists for each show.
“Tantrum works with a casting director out of New York City to cast all professional roles that will go to Equity artists,” Clark wrote in an email. “These auditions are held in New York City late in the summer prior to our season.”
Tantrum’s audition process, along with its inclusion of union actors, helps students prepare for professional roles after graduation.
“Tantrum follows a standard practice for auditions that most regional and professional theaters follow,” Clark wrote in an email. “Our auditions are set up to mirror a professional process so our student actors are given practical experience to prepare them for the professional world.”
For students who are not yet involved in theater, the audition process can sound intimidating. Ben Spence, a freshman studying marketing and business analytics, has not been on stage since his fifth-grade musical. He said he does not remember being too nervous about his audition since he had practiced the piece, though he said he would not have been able to memorize a whole piece to audition with.
“Not having to be memorized really helps if you didn't know about (auditions) before you got down to campus,” Fanger said. “It definitely helps open opportunities to people who didn't know about it very soon, and just to non-acting majors who maybe haven't done it, because we have lots of people who have never done it.”
Today, Spence said he gets nervous regarding other public speaking events, but it wears off quickly.
“Once I'm actually up there and the words start flowing out of me, I kind of get over it after the fact,” Spence said.
Spence’s nerves are not uncommon. According to Psychology Today, one in four individuals feel nervous when they have to present in front of an audience. Though an audition is not a presentation in the regular sense, the performance aspect and the attention that comes with it can kick someone’s stage fright into action.
Clark said nerves should not dissuade anyone from auditioning, though.
“Moderate nerves are good,” Clark wrote in an email. “They make your heart rate speed up a bit and feed more oxygen to your muscles and brain. This can serve an actor in that their attention is heightened, their work may be more spontaneous, their sensory awareness more alert and alive. Overall, it can improve your presence. Nerves show that you care.”
