Finding the best audition process

Yesterday I was at a youth centre in the south east of England; we were starting our preparation for a performance which the young people are going to be doing in July. The performance will be to celebrate the Queens Diamond jubilee; we have chosen to re-enact a piece from a television advertisement. 

The first part of the session was spent familiarising myself with the piece. I started to look at the dance sequence and how many characters where taking part, my colleague and I look at the children's request for parts. My colleague had a list of the young people's names from the previous session. Alongside the young people’s names the young people had written what part they wanted to play. Some of the young people had chosen the same parts; while others had put down ‘any’. After my colleague And I had broken down the dance sequence we started to compare it with the list of young people’s names.

My colleague looked at the sheet which the young people had listed the parts they wanted to play, we thought it would fair that they would all get a part in the piece. Most of them will get the parts that they have asked for.

 We made a rough list of who would play what part, as we started to do this we realised that there were more young people than parts. So we decided that we might tweak the sequence a bit just so that they all have a part regardless of how big or small it may be. As its half term we didn't get a lot of young people in, half term has affected the attendance of the young people; this has also hindered the audition process. We had to think of an alternative way of choosing the characters.

My theory on the lack of attendance is that the young people might be taking part in other activities that may only take place during half term. Some may also be away with family or may even be on holiday however if this does continue it could possibly affect our overall out come with regards to their summer performance. My colleague and I did not spend the whole session on the planning of the performance as it would not have been fair for the other young people, who are not going to be taking part. As it’s the Easter holidays we thought it would be nice to other activities such as:

·        Baking cakes

·        Making Easter Cards

·        Colouring Easter Themed pictures

Although we did not get a lot of young people in yesterday I still feel that we had a productive session, we were still able to get on with some planning. Next week is the last week of half term so hopefully after that week the young people's attendance will pick up.

 

Below is the link to the performance that the young kids will be re-enacting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kav0FEhtLug