Antagonizing Audition Anxiety

     Your heart pounds. 
Your throat squeezes your breath so hard that you can't get any air out.
     Your hands and legs start trembling so hard that on the Richter Magnitude Scale, they would probably rate a 6. 
     Your hands rain sweat.
You don't need to look in the mirror to know your cheeks are turning red.

     Most people have to endure auditions at least once in their life. Whether it's for a sports team, a play, a music competition, university, or an acting agency, it's possible to get nervous in all of those types of auditions.
     I. hate. Auditions. So far I've managed to weasel my way into four plays in the past year without having to audition...but sometime, real life is going to hit me again, and I'll have to attend another audition.  Every actor I've talked to loves performing. 100% of them also hate auditioning. Now why, would actors of all people, be afraid of an audition? We're playing characters all the time, aren't we? Aren't we used to being in front of crowds? Don't we like being in front of crowds?
      There's more pressure in an audition. In a show, unless you're doing a one person show, you often have other cast mates around to save you if you mess up. In an audition though, you've only got yourself to count on.

I think I have some of the biggest stage fright of anybody I know. It's ironic.  From performing since I was little though, I've picked up a few tips that don't necessarily have to be applied to an acting audition, but any type of audition.

• Know your material solidly. Even whatever you have to memorize is easy technically, you still need to know it so well that you'll remember it five years later.  Recite your material backwards, and by running through the material really fast without any pauses between words.

• Bananas and chocolate make me less nervous, as well as being well hydrated. I could be imagining it though. Who doesn't become more content while eating chocolate?

I refuse to recognize any other food group other than chocolate.

• Prepare your outfit, any necessary materials, snacks and water, and transportation the night before your audition. I'm a lot less stressed when I'm not rushing around frazzled at the last minute trying to grab everything except the kitchen sink.

• Don't focus on why you're at the audition, or what role you desperately want. Use the audition as an opportunity to practice in front of an audience.

• If you're in a group audition, remember that everyone is at different stages of audition and performing experience. If you mess up, there will be other people there who sympathize, who have committed the same mistake as you.  Don't be afraid to perform.  Everyone has their own style of singing,  or acting, or expressing themselves, which is so wonderful. You can't be someone else. You've just got to work with what individual potential you've got. When you compare yourself to others, usually strangers, you're comparing a spaniel to a poodle. They both have their own positive attributes and weaknesses.  

• Most importantly: The more you audition and perform, the less nerve wracking it becomes. There's no way around it. After a decade, I've finally gone from all my limbs shaking and my voice undulating  95.6% of the time to that only happening 7.8% of the time.

"Use what you know. Don't worry about what you don't know."
-Michael Shurtleff