The biggest change with auditions this year was the audition blocks- we put the audition form online and made it available in advance. People could fill it out and turn it in to the basket in the office. Everyone who had turned their form in by Monday afternoon was given a block of time in which their audition would fall (ie, 6-7, 7-8, etc.). If they did not turn in their form by Monday afternoon, I told them to come at 8:00. I also planned for the walk-ups to fill out their form, get their name put on the list, and come back at 8:00.
The other change we made (I say we because I implemented all of these genius ideas, but none of them were actually things that I came up with. Also I had help in the form of the rest of the SM team) was to eliminate the epic trek from the lobby, down the stairs, and around the backstage to get onstage to actually audition. I gave each group my spiel and then took them to the green room. Everyone from the other audition blocks waited in the main lobby. This way, they could relax in the green room until 2 slots away from their time, then go get their picture taken, and wait at the end of the backstage hall when they were "in the hole," and then move to the anteroom when they were "on deck." (I also extended our baseball metaphor- we always just said "on deck" for everything, which was really confusing, but then they all were confused about what "in the hole" meant... Theatre kids need to get out more.)
The Department Chair sent me this email today:
Becky, SM, ASM, ASM, & SM
Your names all came up in the faculty grading session today with high praise indeed for your efforts in helping the massive auditions last week run smoothly and effectively. We would like you all to never graduate and stay forever please.
Just kidding.
Sort of.
Great work!
So that was nice.
I ran into two issues with this new system- the first issue was with the website. Putting the form online worked really well, it was just a huge hassle trying to get it up (that's what she said), and then sometimes it would disappear from the website altogether. I know we were right in the thick of updating the website, so hopefully that won't happen again.
The second issue was with people who did not turn their form in before Monday afternoon. I don't know how many different ways I can say "Bring your form at 8:00." I don't understand why every actor thinks that somehow I can alter the audition order because their printer ran out of ink or they left their resume at home when they left this morning. It's not "too late for an audition time," JUST SHOW UP AT 8:00. I also got 3 audition forms out of the basket in the office after I had put a sign in the basket that said "Do not put your form here. Come to the theatre at 8:00 and you will be given an audition time."
Speaking of resumes. That was another issue- I forgot to ask them to include their headshots & resumes with the audition forms, so only the people who did it without being asked had theirs copied & given to the director with their forms. The point of having things turned in ahead of time was to prevent the lag time of having to photocopy the forms and put them in order to give to the directors, so that was my fault. Hopefully in the future, we can include that memo in the audition info.
Also, I picked up an interesting tidbit in this audition- next time we audition for more than one show at a time, and one of them is not a musical, we should if possible put all of the people only auditioning for the non-singing show at the end, so that the department doesn't have to pay the accompanist to sit and listen to 20 people not sing.
I think that the new things we tried this time around definitely were the reason that everything went so smoothly and so quickly.
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