Live Accompanist Auditions are Counterproductive Gatekeeping and They Need to End at Community Theatres
Kim Carroll
(Editor’s note: I adjusted the title to make it clear that this article was directed towards community theatre settings, since that wasn’t as clear when the article was originally published)
I’ve already gone through the usual song-picking nonsense: Comedic piece, similar in style to the show in question, clean content, not overdone, but known enough that it will likely be familiar to the accompanist and I can find sheet music for it -- music which must be simple enough for said accompanist to sight read. The song must not be too easy to sing, but not so challenging that I can’t sing it with confidence. It must consist of a perfect 32-bar cut that contains a verse and a chorus and shows range and builds to a satisfying conclusion, written for a character I could actually play.
Done. Found the music, transposed it to my key, purchased it, printed it, highlighted the stop and start points and all key changes, numbered the measures, put the paper in clear plastic sleeves in a three-ring binder, the last page taped on in such a way that there won’t be a page turn (with an alternate printed version that does include a page turn in case the music stand will only hold two pages at a time)...
All that, then I get into the room and hand the music off to the charming accompanist, and he opens it and says with a big friendly smile, “Oh, I haven’t heard this one! What tempo would you like?”
Crap. I’ve given the wrong answer to this question before. In my experience, most audition pianists err on the very slow side when it’s a song they have never seen before. If I tell him the real tempo, he’ll probably play it too slowly.
I tell him: “As fast as you can.”
He turns out to be a savant. He indeed plays it “as fast as he can,” with the result that my audition, which I rehearsed to take about 45 seconds, takes less than half that time. I am unable to spit out the lyrics fast enough, let along sing them, and I lose my place and my words.
I stumble out of the audition, an audition which represented several hours of prep, in under a minute, in shock and demoralized.
With variations on the particular type of accompanist problem - starting in the wrong place, forgetting the key signature, slogging through in slow motion, and so on - this is around the tenth time this has happened to me.
Infuriating.
This is the wrong way to run an audition.
First of all, the whole process is obviously gatekeeping, right?
You opine about the importance of diversity casting, casting outside the normal pool, casting people without privilege. Do you know what percentage of people in your city doesn’t even own a printer? What do you expect them to do? Pull a piece from their library of Broadway musical piano-vocal selections? Drive the spare car over to the local Kinko’s to pay for copies? Once they’ve done that, perhaps they can familiarize themselves with the music by practicing with the Steinway in the antechamber. The Mater’s private vocal coach can pencil them in.
Once, while I was waiting in line for an audition, the pianist came out in the hallway for a break and I overheard him snarking to a stage manager about these idiots who keep bringing in books for him to play from - just books! No folders, no clear sheet covers!
I boiled, thinking of some poor kid who worked for four hours at minimum wage to afford a $24.99 pristine copy of the Legally Blonde piano book. She thought it would be enough. She dreamed a silly dream that she had finally worked hard enough to walk into a community theatre audition without anyone laughing at her behind her back. What a schmuck. It’s not like anyone could anticipate this sort of minor oversight and bring a couple of heavy books to hold her pages open, like pianists have done since time immemorial.
What could possibly be the justification for this sort of intentional - it has to be intentional - snobbery?
What are community theatre companies trying to prove?
Why do they insist on live, sight-read piano music for auditions?
To find better talent? Nonsense. Whose talent is best showcased by bad accompaniment? Our Lady of Perfection Sutton Foster couldn’t have sung “If I Were a Bell” to the keyboard smash I got during a college audition.
One could argue that a roulette wheel of various piano disasters is a way to level the audition playing field. But why don’t you throw in total darkness and a couple of anvil-dropping tripwires while you’re proving that manufactured adversity is the true test of a singer?
Don’t try to tell me “It’s to see how you would react if something went wrong with the music in a performance.” Baloney.
Your show will probably use tracks. I can’t remember a show I’ve been in or helped with in the last five years that didn’t. But even if you’re in that tiny percent that will use live music, you’re telling me you’re worried the live musicians will play the music in the wrong key, or at double or half tempo, or otherwise butcher it, and your solution is to put together this Maze Runner-style test for your actors instead of finding some better musicians?
You couldn’t have everyone at callbacks sing ONE song that the pianist has prepared, and have the pianist adjust tempos or throw curveballs in a controlled way that’s fair to every performer? Ba. Lone. Y.
The reason producers put themselves through the agony of finding, scheduling, and paying a (yes, probably very nice) highly trained professional audition pianist who half the time can’t do the job asked of them because it’s really hard, while also making their auditionees jump through thirty flaming hoops before they walk in the door, comes down to one word.
Tradition.
That’s how we’ve always done it! Fifty years ago nobody had tracks and phones and Youtube, so the only way to have music in the room was to hire a pianist.
Tradition is important! Theatre runs on it! This is how they do it on Broadway. Can’t have our actors using tracks like a bunch of plebs who don’t know how the game is played. We’re professionals!
Oh my goddddd.
I know. I know having actors bring their own tracks to the auditions is trashy. You totally want to fill your cast with poor, underprivileged people, but not, like, trash, right?
That was unfair. My tone was uncharitable.
Maybe the food-critic-from-Ratatouille character I picture when trying to imagine someone who insists that auditioners bring their own sheet music is based on only the tiny selection of real-life bad apples I’ve met who imagine their life’s purpose is to maintain the integrity of theatruh. Maybe you’re a bouncy, cheerful, charitable Seth Rudetsky just trying to prep your performers for bigger and better houses than your own.
Fine. You’re Seth. I love you and you have done no wrong. It’s the big bad world that’s the problem.
Be the change, Seth.
LET THEM USE TRACKS.
Here’s how it works: You give the performers a time limit instead of a bar limit. 30 seconds or one minute instead of 16 bars or 32 bars.
The performers bring their own music on their phones or on a USB stick. It may seem counterintuitive for someone who’s not in the business, but it is far easier and cheaper for an actor to acquire a soundtrack than sheet music. For one thing, you don’t need a printer to bring in a track.
It’s also better for you, the producer. In the room, there’s no need for a piano or an extra employee. You need a speaker. A laptop. Maybe an iPhone dongle. You give the actor one chance to test their track for volume. It takes five seconds - the same five seconds your actors normally spend haggling with the pianist over tempo. Then you or the stage manager presses play. The actor sings the song they prepared, the way they prepared it. They give you their best, with no surprises. They leave. It’s over. It’s fine. Nobody dies from the indignity of canned music.
Possible objections:
“What if the track doesn’t work?”
I don’t know, what if the sheet music blows off the stand? I’ve run several auditions with tracks. Not huge shows. Probably had 150 people come through, total. Never had one track fail.
“What if they can’t find a track?”
What if they can’t find sheet music? They’ll find a way or pick a different song. I know a high schooler who created an entire karaoke track for Hamilton’s “Non-stop” in an afternoon using a school piano and a cell phone.
“Tracks cost money too!”
Yes. A dollar on Amazon. Or you could have the person play a Youtube video for free. Shudder, I know. God, what if they’re interrupted by an ad? On the other hand, what if the pianist misrepresented their ability to sight-read? I’ve encountered one of those scenarios in real life. Guess which one.
“We only want singers who can read music!”
That’s its own article.
“Aren’t tracks the real gatekeepers? What if the actor doesn’t own a phone?!”
You tell me what’s easier to borrow from a friend: a phone or a 32-bar-cut copy of “Belly Up to the Bar, Boys”.
Theatre is already full of social justice hypocrisies. We make cast members sign forms committing to an absolute rejection of inequity-based bullying while simultaneously listing the colors of leather Capezio character shoes the actors will be expected to provide for themselves.
Track-based auditions are a no-brainer step in the right direction: a simultaneous concession to modernity, move towards inclusion, and advantage in terms of finances and convenience to struggling community theatres.
And if the final argument is accompanists need paychecks, too? Fine. Pay them. Bring them. Give your performers the option of live accompanists.
But if you want to require one…
Go ahead, it’s your company.