Cats Audition

My first round of the audition was singing. As my ballad song, I chose to sing Nobody's Side from Chess. In preparation for the audition, I rehearsed the song during the week, using a music practice room at college. As the accompaniment had to be piano only or otherwise acapella, Rachel helped me source a piano only backing track. This took some adjusting to because I had previously rehearsed with the original instrumental, which included orchestral instruments on top of the piano. By just singing with piano, my voice felt more exposed. This made me pick up on mistakes I was making, in terms of pitch, pace and sometimes key, which meant improvement in my vocals. On the day of the audition, I was pleased with how my ballad went. My timing was good and my variation in volume was well balanced. This reassured me that I had selected an appropriate song for the range of my voice, which I will always keep at the front of my mind for future auditions. Furthermore, I selected this song because Elaine Page has sung it - the actress who played Grizabella in Cats. This is a part I am very interested in. Next was my upbeat song, which was Gimme Gimme from Thoroughly Modern Millie. I sung this acapella, due to there not being a piano only instrumental. I preferably wanted to sing with an instrumental, which has made me set the target for myself to be more organised and buy sheet music beforehand. Originally, I had planned to perform 1 minute and a half of the song, however on the day I stopped very early on which is something I regret. I think this was because I was singing acapella and naturally left longer gaps between verses and the chorus. Although, 'Gimme Gimme' matches the theme of upbeat songs in Cats, it is strictly a jazz-style song. Cats soundtrack varies between music genres, so I felt like I could have chosen a song which was perhaps more in the pop genre, or to be more specific, an upbeat female song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's repertoire, such as Buenos Aires - Evita.

My Ballad
My Upbeat

My second round of the audition was an interview. Rachel asked a lot of unexpected questions,  like 'What is the Cherkanah Straker method?' and 'Sell yourself to a West End casting director right now', however I did not act or become thrown off by the element of surprise. Although, I recognised that I need to speak more confidently in my response to a question I don't initially grasp. The interview was probably my weakest round of the audition process. Since I am applying to drama schools, which involves one-on-one interviews, this is an area I will strongly focus on, ensuring I have an answer for whatever I may be asked on the day.

My Interview

My final round of the audition was a dance solo, which I self-choreographed in and out of lesson time. My stimulus for the dance was Cats and jazz technique. To act on my stimulus, I watched the original film clips of Cats for inspiration, and took sequence of movements from it and also ones we were taught by Emily in class. To ensure I had good technique, I attended weekly jazz technique sessions. In these sessions I was able to improve on my leaps - getting my back leg straight - and also work on my flexibility. I hope to be able to do the splits at the end of term. Our task was to create a 2 minute solo. I found getting the first minute done easy, however because I didn't want to repeat lots of the same movement, I made the second half challenging to choreograph. A strength of my dance audition was my confidence and composure in performance and giving the energy it required - smiling throughout. A weakness of mine is that my eyes need to keep facing up and ahead. On the next dancing task, I need to pay more attention to my arms, and give them exact positions or movement. Watching back my solo, I noticed that my arms tend to fling about, making the rest of my movement look unpolished. Lastly, at the end of my solo I failed to hold an end position, which makes me want to work on my balance.

My Dance Solo
Original Jellicle Ball - inspiration for my solo.