Audition Tips Series – Part 3

How Do I Prepare For a Musical Theatre Audition?

In my last blog, I talked about how to prepare for an opera audition. But what if you love musical theatre? Well, you’re in luck because that’s today’s topic – how to audition for musical theatre for an upcoming production!

Auditioning for an role in opera or musical theatre is a similar process in that you want to be professional, kind, timely and know your music well in the audition, in order for the panel consider you for a role in their upcoming musical production.

There are some key differences, however, and I will list them below.

Acting

In some auditions, the panel might ask you to do some acting scenes along with singing, so it’s important to prepare as an actor as well as a singer.

TIP: When dressing for the audition, you want to dress nice, but do dress also in comfortable attire, especially shoes, if there is any choreography involved in the musical theatre auditions. Be sure to look up audition information on the company’s website for further details.

Monologue

A monologue is a long speech that’s read by one person. It can be directed to another character or the character is speaking alone.

Check out this helpful video on how to perform a monologue!

Singing A Capella

In a musical theatre audition, you may not always be able to sing with an accompanist. Often times, you will sing your selection a capella, which means without instrumental accompaniment. This is why it’s important to know your music well enough with tempo, time signature and key signature. Be sure to practice your audition selection a capella enough times, so that you’re prepared!

Musical Selection

You will want to have prepared maybe a few musical theatre selections in your repertoire, but the panel will ask you to sing 16 bars of whichever selection you choose. It could be more or less bars, but 16 is the standard in a musical theatre auditions.

Here are some additional musical theatre audition tips from the New York Film Academy.

I hope these tips are helpful. Whether you’re auditioning for a professional level group or at a local theatre, I believe these tips will help you on your music theatre journey!

Stay tuned for my next blog, I will talk about how to prepare for an audition on American Idol and other singing competition shows. Please comment below and music theatre audition experiences and be sure to subscribe to my blogs! Thank you so much!

Photo by Florian Wehde on Unsplash