Audition Advice: Show Command

practice the audition format

This person is practicing | Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash

The UCB Theatre in LA is having auditions for its house teams soon. So the LA improv community is, for the moment, completely insane.

For the next few weeks, it is all about the auditions. Even the people who don’t care about auditions — for them it will be all about reminding people that they don’t care about the auditions.

Here’s what small advice I have.

HUGE QUALIFIER: I’m not watching the auditions, my opinion will not be taken into account. I’m giving my opinion here because I had the audacity to start a newsletter about improv, and I watch one million improv scenes every week.

It’s Not The Rules, It’s COMMAND

You will hear a million rules and pieces of advice of how to impress an auditioning committee. Things like

• They don’t like peas in a pod

• You can only make yourself unusual

• You can’t play any drunk characters or children

• Don’t start a scene with digging

• Always have a why

• Make sure you frame the unusual thing

Each of these could be a good piece of advice in certain contexts.

But in my opinion, if you do improv just trying to show that you know the rules, you will play very lifelessly and be overlooked.

What matters is: do you have COMMAND?

Command = Comfort

Meaning, are you comfortable and loose as you play make believe with other people?

Do you easily listen, process and respond to other people’s moves?

Are you able to comfortably make choices?

If this were basketball, I’d be saying “Do you look comfortable dribbling and passing the ball?”

Command is the number one factor I use to determine if someone is even in consideration for placement on a team.

How can you get command?

The best thing you can do is to: practice the audition.

Practice the Audition

The auditions in LA are in the next few weeks. You can’t make yourself better at improv over a few weeks.

But you CAN make yourself better at the audition format in three hours.

The audition this year is (I believe): With a group of 8 people: tell 2 stories, do 4 scenes. Tell 2 more stories. Do 4 more scenes. Everyone initiates one, and receives another.

So: rent a room for two hours, get 4-8 friends. Run the audition format. Three or four times through.

That’s it. That’s the advice. Practice the audition.

The notes you get won’t matter that much. Just get comfortable with the format.

That’s Mostly It

I do have other thoughts but they are way less important than that one. To show command, get comfortable with the audition.

Initiate A Livable World

For example, another piece of advice I have is to: initiate a livable world.

Meaning: don’t start a scene as two water skiiers improvising a song about a current political event. It’s too hard to improvise in that situation. Instead, start with two friends in a coffee shop.

Give Yourself Something

Gift your own character something. A point of view, a philosophy, an emotion, a fun voice, a physicality. Take care of yourself. Do it in the intiation or in the response or as early as you can.

Something simple. “You know me, I love to plan.” Or give yourself a big happy smile.

Giving yourself something also solves a sneaky problem where people set up a scene in which two very normal people are being subject to a problem that someone else cause. Suggestion: pizza. First line “Oh no, someone stole our pizza!” Although there’s plenty of time for this scene to be good, you’ve started off by making the “someone” the star of the show.

Try to Experience Joy

The hardest one of all: try to enjoy the audition. If you can reach a little playfulness and joy while doing this mindfuck of an experience, you will be a source of relief to everyone in the room.

I’m not saying go nuts. Just do some object work. Or use a fun voice. Enjoy your body language. Use a cool turn of phrase. Wiggle your eyebrows. Scrunch your head down. Initiate an idea you actually like. Enjoy saying yes and adapting. Remember that you like doing improv.

Conclusion

• It’s not about rules, it’s about having command

• Practice the audition

Good luck!

Remember, there will still be a million people doing and watching improv if you don’t make it.

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Plugs

• The World’s Greatest Improv School: The improv school I run with Jim Woods and Sarah Claspell. We’ve got classes online, in LA and even a few in NYC! You can join our mailing list if you want our weekly announcement of shows.

• How to Be The Greatest Improviser On Earth - My improv book, available at Amazon. Kindle or print (also on my web site for more if you don’t want to buy from Amazon). It’s a hodge-podge of advice I wrote in 2016 about doing improv. If you’re short of funds and want a free PDF version just email me and I’ll send it over.