To Do or Not To Do: Building Your Audition Book

That is the question, and today we're asking it about preparing your repertoire.

Musicals come in all shapes, sizes, colors, personalities, temperaments, genres, etc., which is why it's so important to have a wide variety of music in your book. This is a lesson I'm still learning (and this old dog does not want to learn the new trick), but in NYC, it's necessary, so all together, lemme hear it: IT'S NOT FEASIBLE TO LEARN NEW MATERIAL FOR EVERY AUDITION. Are you listening, Heidi-Liz?

Working in AZ theatre, I really prided myself on finding new songs / cuttings for every audition so that A) I could make each audition unique to the character(s) I was going for, and B) since I was auditioning for a lot of the same companies, I could help ensure they wouldn't get bored of me, singing the same songs over and over. That mentality made sense when I had an audition once every 1-2 months, but here? When there are more production companies than sense, not to mention multiple auditions happening daily during peak seasons? Ya gotta have something ready for all kinds of shows with very little warning, so find your best of the best and hone them to the best of your ability. Here are some to do's and not to do's when building that audition book!

🤩 TO DO -- Sing What You Love to Sing

If you get absolutely nothing else out of this post, take this: sing what you love to sing. The general consensus is that you should be singing songs that are unique or that are not overdone, but here's the secret: nothing is unique anymore. So if you are most confident, most consistent, and most content singing songs like "Don't Rain On My Parade" or "Santa Fe", slap one of those in your book and don't apologize for it.

🤮 NOT TO DO -- Copy People You Admire

The world already has a Barbra Streisand and a Jeremy Jordan, as well as an Idina Menzel, a Christian Borle, a Sierra Boggess, a Gavin Creel, a Sutton Foster, a Ramin Karimloo, a Laura Osnes, a Brian d'Arcy James, and so on and so on. But there's only one you. So sure, take inspiration from the greats and emulate them when singing their songs, but this industry isn't about mimicry. Share what makes your voice special!

🤩 TO DO -- Choose "Active" Songs

To give yourself the best shot at a callback, you want to show the people in the room your acting chops as well as your singing voice, right? That's why it's important to choose songs and/or create cuttings that give you a distinct beginning, middle, and end. If your song has no build or a resolution -- just a lot of singing in circles, basically saying the same thing over and over again in different words -- you're not doing yourself any favors as you're really only showing them one emotion, one thought. Tell a story! Singing and acting are forms of storytelling.

🤮 NOT TO DO -- Choose Songs That Are Obscure Just Because They're Obscure

Okay, so you don't want to sing overdone songs; you want to find lesser-known material and fill your book with songs no one else has. Cool, I can respect that, sounds like a plan. Then lemme ask you: why did you choose these songs? ... Oh, that is why, you just want to be different?... Alright.

Do you see why this extreme is problematic, too? Picking songs that no one knows simply because that makes them "special" is not a good enough reason to put them in your book. You have to relate to the character you're playing and believe in their story. Obscurity for its own sake does not tell the table anything about you as a performer.

🤩 TO DO -- Make Yourself Interesting to Watch

We're performers, a big part of our job is to entertain and keep our audience engaged. So help yourself by finding songs with big personality / very clear characters. Some songs include more physical action and reaction than others, so how do you make a traditional park-and-bark interesting? By focusing every ounce of your energy and emotion into your face. Some say that the eyes are windows to the soul, so if you don't have anything physical to do, act your face off.

🤮 NOT TO DO -- Scream, Swear, or Screlt Excessively

Put yourself in a casting director's shoes for a moment. You woke up early to get to the audition, you're still waking up as the first round of auditioners are lining up outside your door, you're psyching yourself up for a long day of hearing potentially hundreds of actors, all clamoring for your attention and interest. Now imagine all those actors singing songs chock full of obscenities, AND that live in the stratosphere of their range, AND listening to that hundreds of times, 6-7 hours a day. It doesn't really sound fun.

You want to put your best foot forward in the short amount of time you have in the room, and excessive swearing doesn't exactly give the best impression. Additionally, great, okay, you showed them you can screlt, but you have more to offer than that. So mix it up! Surprise them! Be the only person to sing a soft ballad when everyone else is belting face! That's how you'll stand out.

🤩 TO DO -- Pick Songs You Can Sing Over and Over and Over Again

Remember, we're professional auditioners here, so you're gonna be working with your book a lot. This advice should be taken both literally and figuratively. First ask yourself: is this a song I can reliably sing first thing in the morning without blowing out my voice? Then, if the song passes that test, ask yourself: is this a song I could sing every day, multiple times a day, and not tire of it / discover new intention or passion for it every time? If you can answer "Yes" to both of those questions, you've found a winner.

🤮 NOT TO DO -- Google "Audition Songs For..."

Don't lie, we are ALL guilty of this. And because we're ALL guilty of it, we ALL end up singing the same things. It's a bad habit that really does not help you in any way, so try to break it early in your rep journey. If you're well and truly stuck with absolutely no idea where to begin finding music, research the kind of artist you want in your book and the range of songs they sing. Or you can research the composer of the type of show you want as well as their library of works in the same genre of whatever hole you're looking to fill.

With all that in mind, you're well on your way to building an amazing audition book! Of course, remember that your repertoire is never set in stone: if you go to a few auditions and find that a song isn't working for you or doesn't get the response you're looking for, there's nothing wrong with taking it out and finding something else. No one has ever "arrived" -- we are all always growing and always changing -- so make peace with the fact that your audition material will change in different seasons of life (and yes, those seasonal changes can be frequent).

Thanks for reading, #DreamTeamHLJ, and say it with me: IT'S NOT FEASIBLE TO LEARN NEW MATERIAL FOR EVERY AUDITION (I'm really trying, I promise).