The Seven Secrets of a Power Audition

Ever hear of an actor being described as having “presence”… that ineffable quality of being that is completely captivating and eminently watchable? Every move, every word of dialogue, every gesture seems to be so “right” - so earned, and yet so startling at the same time. It’s no surprise that these are the actors we honor - treat like royalty, even.

It may seem that this quality, this near-mystical state, is a condition bestowed by chance on a lucky few. Or at best, if one is lucky enough to experience a blessed moment of “being there”, it comes in fits and starts, totally unexpected and so mercurial that it disappears as quickly as it arrives without leaving any clues as to how to recapture it.
Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Although some actors are given this gift with little or no work or training, this quality of “presence,” like any other aspect of the craft, can be approached as a technique and practiced - just as one would develop one’s voice, body and emotional life. With focused and sustained effort, the “gift” of presence can be accessed, developed and utilized. The key is in harnessing the power of the present moment – “being here now.”

The following seven secrets make up the foundation for accessing the “Now” in an audition or rehearsal situation:

It’s all about the NOW!

The key lies in the word itself. “Presence”… power actors are present, alive to the reality of the moment. While completely adept at being able to navigate character, plot, scenery, camera, audience, dialogue, other actors, etc. the power actor remains completely “in the moment” - responsive to whatever comes his or her way.

How does “being in the moment” help with auditioning?

Let’s imagine… you’ve done all your homework. You’ve worked on the scene; you’ve read the play or screenplay (if it was available). You’ve made all your character choices and marked the script and are ready to convince the people in the room that you’re the actor for job. You have a lot of thoughts and ideas about this character… and that’s fine… you must bring all your intelligence to the work, but only if you are willing to throw it all out and “go organic” the minute you enter the room to audition.

The people on the other side of the table want to see you, to experience you. Even though you are presenting a “character,” it is vital that you allow yourself to truly be “seen”. As a director or producer, I always expect an actor to be well prepared, physically comfortable, familiar with and able to handle the text and the style. But what I’m really looking for is an actor who is able to live in the moment with the piece, no matter how much they have prepared, rehearsed, performed or auditioned it. I would much rather witness an actor exploring, and making discoveries about the character, thought by thought, in the moment - than be shown a library of pre-conceived “ideas” that may or may not match mine or the playwright’s.

Believe me, you may be totally wrong for the part, and you may not get the role, but if you can achieve this sense of discovery and surprise, this exploration of the possibilities of the moment, you WILL be remembered. You will have reminded everyone on the other side of the table why they entered this business in the first place. You will have given them a great gift, and they will thank you, some day, by handing you the role of your dreams.

This power is available to all actors, all the time. But how do we practice it, create the context for the present moment to be fully experienced, on an ongoing basis, all the time?

1) Breathe
2) Listen
3) Take it up off the page, one thought at a time
4) Let it land
5) Put a period at the end of the thought
6) Practice
7) Courage…Dare to be

Breathe

Take a breath. It’s as simple as that. Breathe before you start, breathe at the end of a beat, breathe in a transition, wherever. Feeling “out of it”? Take a breath. Feel like you’re “nailing it”? Take a breath.

It’s no coincidence that the word for taking a breathe has the same roots as the word for access to the artist’s soul… INSPIRATION. Breath creates a dynamic bridge between the left side of our brain - the part involved with speech, linear time and logic - and the right side, the side attuned to impulse, spirit and inspiration. This is the realm of imagination… the realm of the visceral, uncensored response to the present moment. Because breath can be both a conscious, left-brain function, and an unconscious, right brain instinct, it serves as a bridge between both hemispheres - and is therefore the connective tissue, the key to the nuanced communication between the artist’s intellect and her soul.

Even on a very practical level, there is nothing a director likes to see more, or a producer or a casting director or an audience for that matter, than a living, breathing human being on stage. In an audition situation, usually because of nerves, many actors deny their own humanity by avoiding that most important human function... breathing.

Breath is essential to the actor’s instrument: the body-mind-spirit. Not only are you sending a message to the director/producer that you are indeed “alive” - a player, willing to make discoveries with them, you are also sending a message to all the emotional and physical centers of your instrument, your body/mind/spirit, to activate, integrate…. come alive.

Listen

Is there a difference between listening and hearing? Next time you’re in a conversation with a friend, become aware for a moment of how you listen to them. Are you truly hearing what they are saying, or, after hearing maybe the first two or three words, are you already preparing what you are going to say next? If it’s the latter, you are doing your friend a disservice, innocent as it may be, by not truly listening to them… and you are doing yourself an even bigger disservice by preventing yourself access to the present moment. How can you be fully in the present moment if you are already “leaning into” the next? If you listen with care, staying completely present in the moment, there is so much more value to be gained by both parties… communion, even.

So, how do you practice this kind of listening? First, become aware of, and acknowledge, when you are not listening intentionally. In the moments when you become aware you are already crafting a response, or reflecting on what has been said in the past, simply “surrender” to the slip. Don’t fight it, don’t resist it, don’t judge or condemn yourself, just surrender – take a breath, even - and in that moment, you will be gently bought back to the “now,” and the present moment of intentional listening. With regular practice, you will get stronger, and the essential power to listen intently will become more and more first hand.

In an audition situation, more often than not, you will be faced with a reading partner who is not an actor. Maybe it’s a stage manger, or an associate producer who has been pressed into service for the afternoon… and chances are, they are deeply uncomfortable, and will have their faces pressed to the page, their delivery by rote and in a monotone. Don’t let it throw you. Start listening with every pore of your being… listen with your eyes, listen with your hands, listen with your belly. Be certain that no matter how dry a monotone, you have devoured every last morsel they have fed you before you glance back at the text to pick up the next thought.

What if it’s a monologue, a prepared piece? How do we “listen intently” when delivering a monologue?

Remember that no character, whether in dramatic literature or in real life for that matter, sets out to speak in monologues. Human beings communicate one thought at a time, and that one thought leads to the next, and then to the next, and so on. Each thought modifies, or builds on, the one before it. In the context of a play or a scene, a monologue is a series of thoughts conveyed from one character to another without interruption. (Unless it’s a soliloquy, in which case it’s a series of thoughts conveyed to oneself, or one’s higher power, conscience, etc.) In an audition situation, since you are alone on stage, these “thoughts” are spoken to an ‘unseen’ character – but that character is alive nonetheless. The power actor expects that the unseen character will respond just as if they were actually in the room with you… and listens for their response. When they either give their unseen, imagined response – or don’t respond at all, that leads you to the next thought… either modifying or building upon the last, or leading to the next. As you work the piece, look for the places that your unseen partner onstage might possibly respond. Allow for the possibility of their imagined response – and listen for it as you would a real scene partner.

Pick it up off the page, one thought at a time

This is a valuable technique for readings of any kind.

Memorization of a scene or the sides is, in most cases, death to a successful audition. As you commit the lines to memory, you are also likely committing to ways of saying the lines, to how you’re going to stand, when you’re going to sit down… you are “locking in” everything except the most essential: who you are and how you connect with the text in the moment. You are also sending a message to your auditioner that this is a rehearsed - aka “finished” – performance… as opposed to an opportunity to see how you work, how you make discoveries, and thus whether you are someone who can be worked with.

Just as with monologues, real people in real life don’t think in “lines of dialogue”. We think in thoughts… from one thought to the next, each one following on and building upon another.

Reading a scene should be no different. When you look down at the page, instead of looking for your first line of dialogue, look for the first thought. That thought may indeed be the whole line of dialogue, but chances are it will only be a portion of the first sentence. It might be four or five words, but it will be a complete thought. It may even be just one word, as in Hamlet’s dismay: “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt…” “Oh,” has energy, intention and a life all its own. It’s a thought, an expression unto itself - make sure that you allow it the time and import to exist before building on it.

Whatever that first thought is, lift it now off the page. Make eye contact with your partner, and deliver the thought. Just that thought, and that thought alone. Imagine, just for the slightest moment, that that’s all you are going to say. Maybe, just maybe, the other character will respond. Take the slightest moment to listen for a response, then return to the script for the next thought, and repeat, thought by thought, until your line is complete.

Yes, it may feel like this is slowing things down to a crawl – but once you get the hang of it you will be able to achieve a fluidity, and it will make all the difference between a mere ‘reading’ and a moment of dynamic life between to characters.

Let the thought “land”

Your intention as the character is to deliver this one thought. You don’t “know” you’re going to say any more yet. Make certain that the thought “lands” on your partner, that he or she hears it - has received it - before lowering your eyes to the text to allow the next thought to “occur” to you.

Staying with one thought at a time, and making certain that each thought lands, puts you in control and creates a context for the presence of now and its ability to surprise to come into play. It allows an extra second for an association or an emotional response inspired by the text to resonate or bubble up within you. There is an opportunity for a personal connection. When you rush back to the page to pick up your next line before your previous thought has landed, or before the other character is finished responding, you are cutting off the present moment and its power to move you in a glimpse of truth.

Put a period at the end of each thought.

Here’s another good technique for invoking presence: put a ‘period’ at the end of each thought. Forget about the punctuation as written in the script, or how many words of dialogue you’ve lifted as a ‘complete thought’ off the page, or still have to go… just make sure that you end that thought definitively - with a downward inflection, a period. Even if it’s in the middle of a ‘sentence’. Let the next thought – or next part of the sentence - build on that. Again, this sends a powerful message that you are thinking, living, breathing one thought at a time.

Consider this section from in Shylock’s speech from Merchant of Venice:

“Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?”

Because it is one sentence ending with a question mark, our inclination may be to put a question mark after each comma. But Shylock does not set out at the beginning of the speech to list all these aspects, He says “Hath not a Jew hands…” and decides in that moment that he is not finished. He continues, one thought at a time: “Organs. Dimensions. Senses. Affections. Passions!” One complete thought, naturally leading to the next, and the next. Putting question marks or commas after each aspect in the series, makes you “lean” into the next thought without truly living the current one. Put a period on the end of each thought. It will probably slow you down, but it will absolutely help you stay in the moment.

Practice

Power auditioning requires skill, and skill requires sustained effort. Taking the time to consistently practice the techniques listed above will develop skills that, in turn, give us the confidence to be successful. Practice is imperative. If you go into an audition situation attempting to lift the thoughts off the page and letting them land without first mastering the technique, then your head will be filled with nothing but the technique of lifting the thoughts up off the page and letting them land. But, once you have practiced enough that it becomes second nature, you don’t have to think about lifting the thoughts off the page. Or, if you have found through sustained, committed practice a natural way to bring breath into your work, then you need not think about that. Like a minimized application on your desktop, they are there working for you, but you are not focused on them. Remember. It’s not magic…it’s a craft. Work it, practice it, master it… daily. Then, throw it away.
Courage - Dare to be…

Sure, incorporating any of the techniques outlined above is risky. They’ll all slow you down… make you more present, more alive and vulnerable. It takes courage to risk revealing yourself more truthfully. But it’s the only way to discover the power of presence in your work.

Are there methods for mustering courage? Yes. They are powerful tools called affirmations.

Sometimes, no matter how skilled we become, no matter how adept with techniques, the memory of past experiences or the fear of future ones maintain a seemingly powerful hold on our ability to “show up”, to live in the moment and do our best. Some aspects of our subconscious, our ‘egos,’ for instance, or certain self-defeating habits and old tapes, can actually be threatened by positive change. These attitudes and thought patterns often feel very real to us, but they are not. They are illusions that can be gently acknowledged and let go. We must as actors and artists be on constant alert, mindful of how our negative thinking can get in our way, and work to overcome these impediments.

Affirmations are statements of positive belief that can be used as powerful tools to loosen the grip of negative core beliefs. Daily affirmation practice is an excellent way to begin the life-long study that is so essential for finding and maintaining the power actor within us… the study of ourselves.

The following are some examples of affirmations on courage. Feel free to use them as is or modify them to make them your own:

− I have the courage to go slowly and wait.…I dare to be boring.

− I have the courage to play the fool…I dare to be silly.

− I have the courage to breathe…I dare to be alive.

− I have the courage to listen intently…I dare to be compassionate.

− I have the courage to be an artist in the audition…I dare to be discovered.

− I have the courage to ask for help…I dare to pray.

− I have the courage to let go…I dare to play.

Whether you are a seasoned professional, or a fresh beginner, the auditioning process can be intimidating. Having the courage to show who you are is your best work and staying alive to the present moment is the best way to reveal your power. Now here’s the real secret: the techniques above are not meant to become additions to your “actor’s tool chest”. They are not meant to add anything to your work. The reverse in fact, is true. They are meant to help you get out of your own way, to release the impediments to your power, and help you reveal yourself as an authentic, passionate human being.

I once asked a trusted teacher and mentor in my college years, “How do I become a better actor?” and he replied, “become a better person… know yourself.”

I am honored to pass it on.

Break a leg!

I Get Blasted

Sometimes, a night at the theater is painful for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes, however, an evening of theater can be shocking and cruel and make you want to go again and again. The American Premiere production of "Blasted" by Sarah Kane at the Soho Rep was just that experience.

About 6 months ago, I received an e-mail from my good friend Reed Birney. Reed is an accomplished and talented New York actor who works all the time, but you would never consider him a star. He is, however, universally adored by the New York theater community, and in a widely distributed e-mail, he urges a vast network of friends and colleagues, to “act quickly!” He’s appearing in "Blasted" and tickets are already flying out the door. "Besides," the e-mail continued, “not only do you get to see me make my nude stage debut, but I’m sure that all of you want to see me brutally raped at gunpoint.”

Neither one, truthfully... but to celebrate my 54-year old friend's courage to bare his bits on the boards AND to witness the rare opportunity to see a fully mounted production from the limited cannon of Sarah Kane, enfant terrible of the London Theater in the last glimmers of the 20th Century, that is worth bucking my inboard inertia and, as the e-mail advised, taking immediate action.

"Blasted" was Kane’s first play, begun when she was still a schoolgirl in Birmingham, UK, and premiered in 1995 at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The action of the play is set in a room of a luxurious hotel in the north of England, where all seems normal - though there are vague references to a gathering menace in the streets below. Ian, played by Birney in this production that I am now hungry to see, seeks to reignite a dubious affair from the past with an emotionally disturbed innocent named Cate. Ian bristles with gin-stoked rage when his expectations are not met, and a vicious cycle of abuse and brutality begins to be leveled from both sides. After the appearance of a starving, machine-gun-toting soldier from some Baltic conflict, the play descends from a naturalistic though disturbing domestic scene into an increasingly nightmarish world of horrific vignettes depicting anal rape, cannibalism and other shocking brutalities that largely enraged the British press at its premier. The Daily Mail in a review typical among the London dailies referred to the play as a “disgusting feast of filth." "Blasted" was, however, praised by many of Kane’s supporters as an important work, making important parallels between domestic violence and war, and between emotional and physical violence. Had she not suffered from debilitating depression, Kane may have seen those critics eat their words. She took her own life at 29, just two years after "Blasted" was first produced.

Now, it’s a cold Wednesday dusk, an hour before curtain, and I’m walking through what I remember from my salad days as a hell-hole - south-of-Canal Street neighborhood, now newly chic. My destination: the venerable Soho Rep, where "Blasted" is playing and, incidentally, where I made my own NY acting debut, partially clothed, in 1977. I am filled with magical thoughts as I am en route to the same theater where my career in NYC began, the same theater where Sarah Kane is receiving the American debut of her play AND where my BFF Reed Birney is making his big-city debut-de-naked-butt. I am loving life at this very moment, when out of this existential reverie appears an angel. It’s Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Marsha Norman.

“Marsha!” I say.
“Stephen!” she replies, “What are you doing in my neighborhood?”
“I’m seeing this play at Soho Rep,” says I.
A long pause with concern beginning to color her face.
“OOOOO…” she keens, “I hear it’s a pretty rough go.”
“So I’ve heard,” says I.
“Here’s what you do…” she says, "Have a drink, a stiff one.” (I’m thinking, no problem there) “And,” she continues, “purchase a bar of your favorite milk chocolate… consume it quietly during the performance. Good Luck.” With that, she was gone.

I followed her instructions to a T.

The production did not disappoint. To say the actors were good, or even great, doesn’t even begin to describe. Yes, their performances were convincing, accomplished, exciting, but more than that… they were brave. Even within the artifice of theater, to surrender oneself each evening to the lowest depths of human experience can take a toll on an actor’s psyche. It’s a balancing act of professional approach and artistic commitment. To be so convincing, and yet come through the experience six nights/8 times a week uncrushed by the weight of such darkness, is a victory as glorious as any award.

As for me, the medication of one stiff drink quickly wore off as I was drawn into this world. But as I continued to follow that action down, I found myself becoming more and more detached emotionally. I could no sooner accompany the characters to where they were headed than follow them to Mars. Why would I want to? I have my own demons to wrestle with, thank you very much. But, as I became more and more free from my emotions, my judgments began to soften, and my ideas about the action onstage became irrelevant. Maybe it was the chocolate, but a curious change began to take place: the more brutal, the more graphic and repellent the action became, the lighter I felt. With each mounting atrocity - depicted with such care and craft by this extraordinary cast, director and production- I began to believe that I was being given a gift, an opportunity to exercise the darkest aspects of my own psyche, the parts appearing only in my worst nightmares, and to allow this shadow to emerge safely. After experiencing two hours' artful representation of mankind at its most depraved, I left the theater not quite so afraid.

And, thanks to Marsha Norman, I had chocolate to share with my battle-scarred companions to the right and left of me… a communion.

Afterwards, over drinks with Reed at some Church Street dive, I asked what performing in this play was like for him. He said that he’d never had such a liberating experience in his life, onstage or off. As strange as it sounds, I knew exactly what he meant.