Auditions were held last night for H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man at the Kudzu Playhouse in Roswell. This version of the play by Larry Larson and Eddie Levi Lee, takes place not in England, but in Charleston, South Carolina. Matt and Jeff from class auditioned as well.
If possible we were to use a Charleston gentile southern accent. It’s just doing it during a reading. We were also to show interaction with an invisible figure. I did not put a lot of effort into that. I was reading the part of Marvel interacting with Griffen (the Invisible Man). We had about 45 minutes to read over the lines and prepare. With that much time, is it still a cold reading? I don’t think I did that well, but it was not exactly what I was expecting or, the more I thought about it, not exactly what I wanted to do (a stage production of The Invisible Man).
I arrived early and as I was waiting in the lobby, I could hear people rehearsing a play on the stage. I could not see the stage, all I could do was listen. My thoughts were, while I was listening, was “That is awful”. It was terrible. Did I want to audition for a playhouse where the current production was that bad? It was not until later when they finished up rehearsal and left, that I noticed it was all kids. So you see the beginnings of my mindset as I went into the auditions.
First, this was my first audition. Second, I thought the rehearsal I could hear was awful from what I could hear. And, third, as I was waiting to read with my partner, I was watching some of the others read their lines and some of them were overacting very noticeably. Even my partner said “overact and let the director tone you down”.
So with all that, I was not in the right mindset to read lines to the director. I know I did bad and I know I will not land a part. But it was my first audition and really did not know what to expect anyway.