Top Ten Audition Tips from Gary Mendoza

Gary Mendoza

Gary Mendoza is the director of SLT’s production of Doubt, A Parable, opening Feb. 27. Auditions are being held Sunday, January 18, 2015 at the theatre, beginning at 7 p.m.

Details of the audition can be found here and are again repeated at the end of this article. But first, Gary’s Top Ten Audition Tips:

(Director’s note: These are in absolutely no particular order, because they are all equally important)

Top Ten Audition Tips:

1.    Preparation is the key! An audition is basically a sales pitch. You, as an actor, are selling yourself and your skills to a director. The more prepared you are to make that sale, the better. Be familiar with the play and the characters, especially a character that you are interested in playing. A cold reading is naturally rough, but a little prep work goes a long way to smoothing out that roughness, which can go a long way to helping you get cast.

2.    Commit! When reading on stage, make a choice and go for it...even if it's the wrong choice. It's better to take chances and try than to just sit there and be just another person standing on the stage with a script. I tell my students all the time that if they are going to fail, fail gloriously! Because the wrong decision can be fixed, but no decision can only be forgotten about.

3.    DO NOT BE AFRAID OF LOOKING FOOLISH IN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE! (everyone else there will look equally foolish that night also) You must have confidence in yourself.

4.    Be Humble. Attitude trumps talent every single time. Most people would rather work with a great person who is okay on stage than with a great talent who acts like a jerk with a big ego. Some people at auditions may be less talented than you, but that doesn't make them less important.

5.    Have Fun! Yes, I realize that Doubt is a serious play, but I do not mean have fun with the material. Have fun and enjoy being on the stage and pretending to be someone else , because if you don't, then what's the point of doing it?

6.    Be ready to get on the stage when the director calls for you.

7.    Once on the stage, don't waste time. Act like you're there for a reason and take the audition seriously and show everyone in the room that you mean business.

8.    Make sure you know all of your conflicts that you may have. The people in charge can't work around conflicts if they don't know what they are.

9.    Dress for success! Don't wear a costume, but don't wear jogging pants and a t-shirt either. Look like you want to be taken seriously.

10. Give and take! Even in a monologue audition, eventually you may have to share the stage with another person for a cold reading. Whether that person is also auditioning or just helping out, it doesn't matter. Give them something to play off of, because ultimately it could end up making you look better. 

Slidell Little Theatre is proud to announce auditions for the Pulitzer and Tony award-winning drama "Doubt, A Parable," by John Patrick Shanley and directed by Gary Mendoza

Audition Date: Sunday, January 18th at 7p.m.

Call backs only, Monday, January 19th

Audition Location: Slidell Little Theatre

2024 Nellie Drive, Slidell, LA

Need 4 actors: male mid-20s to late 40s, female late 40s to early 70s, female in her 20s, and an African–American female late 30s to mid-40s.

Show Dates:  Feb. 27 – March 15

Rehearsal schedule will be tailored to best fit all parties involved and not necessarily the traditional Sunday thru Thursday.

• Please bring a headshot for use at registration.
• Please be prepared to list all conflicts through the final performance date. 
• Audition will be cold readings only.
• In addition to scene work, any male auditioning for Father Flynn will have to perform a cold reading of one of his sermons.
• Dialogue samples will be available in the lobby before auditions.

All auditions at Slidell Little Theatre are open to the public of all ages.

In this powerful drama, Sister Aloysius, a Bronx school principal, takes matters into her own hands when she suspects the young Father Flynn of improper relations with one of the male students.

Characters:

Father Flynn: (M) Priest, pastor, and teacher in St. Nicholas Catholic School, articulate and personable.

Sister Aloysius: (F) Nun and principal of St. Nicholas Catholic School, protector of the children.

Sister James: (F) Nun and teacher in St. Nicholas Catholic School, young, sincere, caring, and inexperienced.

Mrs. Muller: (F, African American) Mother of student in St. Nicholas Catholic School.

Auditions Set for SLT’s Powerful Drama, 'Doubt'

Slidell Little Theatre is proud to announce auditions for the Pulitzer and Tony award-winning drama Doubt, A Parable, by John Patrick Shanley and directed by Gary Mendoza

Audition Date: Sunday, January 18th at 7p.m.

Call backs only, Monday, January 19th

Audition Location: Slidell Little Theatre

2024 Nellie Drive, Slidell, LA

Need 4 actors: male mid-20s to late 40s, female late 40s to early 70s, female in her 20s, and an African–American female late 30s to mid-40s.

Show Dates:  Feb. 27 – March 15

Rehearsal schedule will be tailored to best fit all parties involved and not necessarily the traditional Sunday thru Thursday.

• Please bring a headshot for use at registration.
• Please be prepared to list all conflicts through the final performance date. 
• Audition will be cold readings only.
• In addition to scene work, any male auditioning for Father Flynn will have to perform a cold reading of one of his sermons.
• Dialogue samples will be available in the lobby before auditions.

All auditions at Slidell Little Theatre are open to the public of all ages.

SYNOPSIS:
A Catholic priest, Father Flynn, is suspected by Sister Aloysius of sexual molestation of the only African American boy in a Catholic school in New York City. She is determined to stop him. Sister James, a neophyte nun, wants to do the right thing, but is unsure who to believe. Mrs. Muller, the mother of the boy in question, doesn’t want to cause any trouble for reasons of her own. The audience is challenged in their own beliefs and criteria for accusation. Did he do it or is he being falsely accused?

CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS:

Father Flynn: (M, late 30s – early 40s) Priest, pastor, and teacher in St. Nicholas Catholic School, articulate and personable.

Sister Aloysius: (F, 50s – 60s) Nun and principal of St. Nicholas Catholic School, protector of the children.

Sister James: (F, 20s or early 30s) Nun and teacher in St. Nicholas Catholic School, young, sincere, caring, and inexperienced.

Mrs. Muller: (F, African American, late 30s – early 40s) Mother of student in St. Nicholas Catholic School.

'Knuffle Bunny' - The Art Behind Bringing a Book to Stage

Behind the Scenes with Julia Lavigne

By Bonnie Lavigne

Julia Lavigne surrounded by her stage creations for 'Knuffle Bunny'

It wasn’t long after Julia Lavigne had returned to the area from art school in Savannah, Ga. that her talents were eagerly sought out by Slidell Little Theatre, first as a poster artist and then as a set designer.

“Julia was among the several artists who volunteered to design a main stage show poster for Slidell Little Theatre,” says Don Redman, SLT’s Vice President of Marketing. “Her credentials and sample pieces alone sold me, but the fact that she’s been with Slidell Little Theatre for years sealed the deal.”

Julia is a native of Slidell and has appeared on stage at Slidell Little Theatre in several YATS and main stage productions over the years. She graduated in 2013 from Savannah College of Arts and Design, with a BFA in Illustration and Communication Design. She currently lives in New Orleans where she is a freelance illustrator and private teacher. When time allows, she eagerly gives back to the community. “In my spare time, I like to volunteer with local organizations like Big Class and Slidell Little Theatre,” she says.

Julia was asked to design the poster for the Christmas show this season, A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Christmas.

“I loved her work so much, I asked her if she would be willing to design our poster for Knuffle Bunny, a production of our Theatre for Young Audiences,” says Redman. “I later got a call from Josh St. Cyr asking me if I had someone to design a poster. I told him Julia was doing it and he just lit up. I think I gave him an idea.”

“I was first approached by Slidell Little Theatre last June to design the poster for the show,” she says, “a month later, the director for Knuffle Bunny, Josh St. Cyr, approached me about managing the set design and I couldn’t say no because I love this story so much.”

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical is based off of the popular children’s book, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems.

In the children’s book, the people are illustrated and the backgrounds are real photographs of Brooklyn, New York. Julia did not want to use the same illustrations as the book, so she decided to use her own artistic style and voice for the set design.

1. Lavigne's drawing of the neighborhood block near the laundromat
2. The inspiration page from Knuffle Bunny; 3. The fantastic fight with
boxer shorts to rescue Knuffle; 4. Julia's conceptual drawing of the
laundromat; 5. Dad and Trixie (Josh St. Cyr and Cara Duffaut)
washing clothes in Julia's 3-D art laundromat. 

Julia explained that she used various photos on the website Pinterest to get ideas on how she would illustrate the shop fronts, houses and other Brooklyn scenes. She used two screens that stayed on stage the entire show, which showed her illustrated background scenes.

 

Top: Julia's drawings projected onto screens from the rear to reflect the
neighborhood where Trixie and Knuffle Bunny live. The drawings were
inspired by Julia's research of typical Brooklyn neighborhoods (bottom)

Julia's images of the laundromat and cityscapes (left) were
projected onto screens onstage (right) seen here from the
back of the stage looking out toward the audience.

Another aspect Julia used to keep the same “children-friendly” theme was to make props with lots of color that looked 3-Dimensional. “We used cardboard and foam for the set pieces and props. All were cut out with a knife, painted white, and then I used those awesome bright colors for accents, so they would match the digital set.”

The making of the firetruck. Bottom left, Julia put final touches
to the paint job before assembling.

The actors carried all of the fun-sized set pieces on and off stage, so the materials used were light and easy to maneuver.

Large boxers used in the dryer fight scene.
("worn by" Mikey Willman)

Light cardboard firetruck "driven" by John Fitzpatrick.

“Julia’s creations were truly stars of the show,” says Josh St. Cyr. “Our community may not know how lucky we are to have a professional artist who grew up in the Slidell Little Theatre come back and lend such amazing talents to the children’s program.”

Julia's poster design for the play.

A behind-the-scenes look at Julia’s creation of the “Redneck Christmas” poster can be found here.

Julia lives on the web at www.Floating-heads.net.