Last fall I auditioned for a theatre in New Jersey. I didn’t think that it went well (they used a format that tends to befuddle me), and I didn’t get a callback. Curses! Foiled again!
Today the theatre called my agency and offered me a role in a reading of a new play they plan to produce this fall– with me in it. I apparently made a good impression!
We as actors tend to be laser-focused on the job at hand. And insofar as preparation for the audition, that’s a good attitude. But once the audition is over you have to assume a long-term view. If you do good work at an audition, but don’t get the job, it wasn’t a waste of everyone’s time. Directors, producers, casting directors and artistic directors remember the people they like. Those folks tend to get called back for more auditions in the future– sometimes the immediate future, and sometimes the distant future.
And every now and then they just call you up and make an offer.
