Ep 34: Audition Stories

"I want to be a musical theater actor. I have six auditions tomorrow. Five the next day. Everyone says this, but you really do hear 'no' everyday. It's not even a 'no,' actually. It's just silence. They never tell you that you didn't get a part. You just hear nothing at all.

There's a website called Audition Update where people post if they've gotten a job offer or callback. It's a way to let everyone else know that they haven't been chosen. I used to be on the site all the time. I kept refreshing the page for each of my auditions, waiting for someone to post about a callback. Then I'd check my email to see if I'd gotten one. All I ever wanted was to finally be the person who was able to post. It was pretty toxic. It made me feel inept. I could actually see the people who were getting all the jobs I wanted, and rejection became this tangible thing. 

I've stopped going on the site. I'm trying to focus more on the process and less on the outcome. I'm taking all the energy that I put into my phone, and putting it into my journal instead. I write things that I love about myself. I write everything I can remember about each audition: who was in the room, what was said, things I did well, things I could have done differently. But once it's on the paper, I let go of it. It helps me stay in the moment. And it helps remind me that the whole reason I'm acting is because I love it."

You really do hear 'no' everyday. It's not even a 'no,' actually. It's just silence.

This really struck a cord with me as it gets to the crux of what makes this career so tough and why we need to be in the right mindset and emotional place to handle all that comes with the daily grind of auditioning, much less the stress once we actually get work.

Here is the list of those sharing their own stories and insights into how they deal with the ups and downs of auditions (with links to their episodes):