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How to Prepare for an Audition

What's the best thing you can do for your audition?

Live your life.

That's right.

Live your life.

If your audition is on Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 PM, you make sure that you have four other appointments before or after. These appointments don't have to be other auditions (which, of course, is nice, if they are). They can be meetings with friends, phone calls to your agent, gift-shopping for Mom's birthday, or your dance class. Either way, the point is, you must fill up your life every day, but especially on the days when you have an audition. If the audition is 9:00 AM, then make sure you have just met with your best encouraging friend (and we all need those) at Starbucks at 7:30.

The worse thing you can do on the day you have your audition is to show your sweat to those for whom you are auditioning - or to be overly-attached to the audition. You have to walk in there confident (but not cocky), carefree (but not careless), and more than anything, being as pleasant as possible (but not sickeningly so).

Everything else is secondary. Uh, huh: secondary.

Knowing more about the character for whom you're auditioning is secondary. Who's directing the movie, TV-show, play is secondary. How much the role pays is secondary. Secondary, defined here as too many details.

Stop worrying about the details, be professional, and know your stuff, as you do for every audition. The latter is a given, not even an option. One audition - and this audition in particular - may be more important than another. But you cannot and you should never let anyone know that.

Just go to the audition prepared. Prepared with a full life, with something to talk about beyond your career.

In fact, nothing prepares you more for an audition or for any character you are to play than your life - for it is from actual living your life (and not waiting for it to begin after your career) that you gain the emotional and psychological experience that you can then apply to not only the creative end of acting, but also to the professional end.

Now, go knock 'em dead.



Herbie J Pilato is an Actor, Writer, Author, Producer, and Singer/Songwriter. Herbie J has appeared and/or produced  hundreds of radio and TV shows, including Bravo's hit five-part series, The 100 Greatest TV CharactersE! True Hollywood Stories on Bewitched and David Carradine, A&E Biographies of Elizabeth Montgomery and Lee Majors, Entertainment Tonight, The Learning Channel's Behind the Fame specials on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, LA Law and Hill Street Blues, and the Syfy Channel's Sciography series.  He's served as a consultant for the special DVD releases of Bewitched, CHiPS, and Kung Fu, as well as on Nora Ephron's Bewitched feature film. As an actor, Herbie J has appeared on everything from Highway to Heaven to The Golden Girls to General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful. As a director, he's guided mainstage productions of A Phoenix Too Frequent, Leonard Malfi's Birdbath, and Little Shop of Horrors. Herbie J's books include: NBC & ME: My Life As A Page In A Book (BearManor Media, 2009), The Bionic Book: The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman Reconstructed (BearManor Media, 2008), Life Story - The Book of Life Goes On: TV's First and Best Family Show of Challenge (BearManor Media, 2007), Bewitched Forever (Tapestry, 2004/2001, Summit/1996), The Kung Fu Book of Wisdom (Tuttle, 1995), The Kung Fu Book of Caine (1993) and The Bewitched Book (Dell, 1992).  He's toured with Nik and Nice Guys (America's #1 Party Band) as "Frankie Vallie," and also performs as "Frankie Vallie" with Frank's Rat Pack.  He released his first music CD, Two, in 2008.  To order the CD, or any one of his books, email hjpilato@aol.com or visit www.herbiejpilato.blogspot.com.  You could also visit Herbie J through TwitterLinkedIn, or Facebook via http://twitter.com/HerbieJPilato, http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro and http://www.facebook.com/#/HerbieJPilato?ref=profile.


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