Auditions are the 1st day of rehearsal

I am extremely fortunate to be in the middle of an audition process right now, having gone through the rounds successfully and am through to the finals. Every round in any audition is an opportunity to refine my approach, to try new things, to deepen my process. In the past - especially with roles I have been up for before, I have looked for new ways to access the character by focusing on physicality first. Other times, I have used textual analysis to ground myself in motivation and creative choice. Each audition is an opportunity to build upon the foundations of the last.

The goal that I’ve set for myself in this upcoming audition is to simply inhabit the characters more than I have in the past, and to be able to show that to the panel. In looking at this goal, I am now working backwards to build up to it.

I’m going to sink deeper into the characters’ back stories to discover my take on their motivation, which ultimately leads to the words they say and the lyrics they sing. I am going to try the method called ‘free-writing’, where I just start writing and allow the story to be written as I go along. In other work I have done, this has helped access a new well of creativity and insight I have into the character. Ultimately, very little (if any) of the story I write will be directly portrayed on stage. But knowing where it all comes from helps me inhabit the world of the character from the inside out. Knowing where it all comes from brings me the assurance that whatever choices I make on stage, they will be grounded in the character I have created.

For this particular audition, I have also decided to treat it as the 1st day of rehearsal - rather than audition. On any first day of rehearsal, I would have done sufficient background work on my character and the show to be able to discuss choices I have made and to illustrate those choices. At the same time, I would have none of these set in stone and I would be ready to play. This really helps SHIFT the focus away from a one-sided “performative” stress environment to one of collaboration and sharing.

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My name is Eu Jin. I recently embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. A big supporter of personal growth, I also dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste. If you would like to find out more or share your thoughts, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website. Thank you very much!

It must cost you something ...

As performers (and perhaps more specifically actors), we are asked time and time again to inhabit the skin of another and bring it to life. We are asked to use skill, technique, practice and sheer human will power to breathe life into a two-dimensional construct. As human beings, we don’t live our lives at emotional extremities; as actors portraying characters on stage or on screen, we are often asked to touch and live in these emotional extremities.

Often, it costs the actor something deeply personal. Regardless the acting method - when you are portraying a character in grief, your body can’t tell that you’re acting. It has the same physiological reaction.

In my years of working in the corporate world - as a general rule, corporations do require their employees to give a lot. But rarely do corporations ask their employees to give what actors are asked to give. Corporations have structure, ettiquette, rules and compliance regulations which clearly demarcate the boundaries of emotional attachment and expression. “You have keep it professional at work” is a phrase I’ve said a million times but it is only now that I realize what it really means.

On the other hand, it is an actor’s boundaries are only as narrow as the character they are playing, which is then as wide as the sum of the human emotional spectrum.

And we are asked to do this everytime we walk into an audition, everytime we rehearase, everytime we walk on stage and everytime the director says “action!”.

I just came out of a 15 minute audition which I spent more than a year preparing for. Imagine cramming all of that work into 15 minutes. If not the pressure to deliver, then the physiological impact on your body, the intellectual stress when you are given acting notes to deliver back immediately or the emotional stress of keeping it all together. It took me 2 hours afterwards to get my body to relax and to stop perspiring.

It definitely cost me something. But it also gave me so much more.

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My name is Eu Jin. I recently embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. A big supporter of personal growth, I also dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste. If you would like to find out more or share your thoughts, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website. Thank you very much!

When fear begins to reach the part of you that is sacred (Part 2)

There’s a voice in my head screaming at me to do something … anything! So the first thing I do is I stop. I stop rocking the boat because guess what? I’m making it worse and more water is getting in because I’m frantic and panicked. Then I begin to plug each hole. Everytime a new one appears, I plug it … until I’m plugging holes faster than they are appearing. I get my breathing under control and I start to listen and think.

How bad is the storm? How long has the storm been going on for?

I realize that I’m also listening out for other boats, hoping that someone bigger will come along and save me. Maybe deep down I feel a deep sense of injustice. I’m doing everything I can to build a career and yet all I experience are barriers and storms - and all I really want is ONE break! But I also know that waiting for someone to save me is not the way I want my career to go. Yes, we all need help - but we also need to own our careers. So I buckle down and reinforce the structure of my boat even more. There is more I can do to save myself.

I also wish that I wasn’t alone in this journey. But when I stop to think about it - I am not alone. Maybe no one is in the boat with me and no one can walk this journey with me, but I have the lessons that I have learnt from everyone who has been in my life. So plugging the holes in the boat, stopping to listen, thinking clearly … all these are lessons I have learnt from people who have been generous enough to impart their knowledge to me. So I asked myself - what else have I learnt that I can use? I could make sure that the clothes I had brought were still sealed and water tight in my bag. I could make sure that my food was also still dry. I could make sure that my tools were still serviceable. There are many things I could do to keep myself safe.

It doesn’t guarantee that I will survive the storm. But at least I navigate it on my own terms. By the time a bigger boat DOES come along, I am doing just fine. I am still in the middle of the storm but I am doing just fine.

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My name is Eu Jin. I recently embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. A big supporter of personal growth, I also dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste. If you would like to find out more or share your thoughts, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website. Thank you very much!

When fear begins to reach the part of you that is sacred (Part 1)

As performers, we all go through periods of doubt, fear and insecurity. Actually, as human beings, we all do, and sometimes with alarming regularity.

But there will be those moments of doubt, fear and insecurity which begin to reach the part of you that is sacred. What I mean by that is that we all have parts of ourselves that we hide from the world, parts of ourselves that we keep safe from even our closest and dearest. But no matter how careful we are, we cannot always stop fear, doubt and insecurity from reaching them.

Maybe it is a deep-seated fear that you will never be successful. Maybe it is a need to prove to your loved ones that you made the right decision to be a performer. Maybe it is a dream you had as a child that never came true. Maybe it’s the fear of running out of time. Maybe it’s getting so close to a dream only to have it slip through your fingers.

And when these sacred spaces are invaded, we react. Because it’s at the core of who we are and if we can’t protect this, it challenges our entire existence and purpose - which is incredibly scary.

I am now waiting to hear about a show that I feel I am absolutely right for. Everyone I know thinks the same way and everyone is rooting for me. Friends I know have been called in to audition but I have not heard anything. As the days pass, the panic starts to rise and I start to think about every past interaction with the production team to look for possible moments I might have done something wrong, something sub-par or whether I had offended them. The last week has felt like an emotional roller coaster where I am just slave to my emotions.

If I may use the image of a one-man boat in the middle of an endless ocean - I am in the middle of a severe storm and water is leaking into the hull. I’m trying to stay afloat, trying to ride out the storm, but all I see are holes - five, then six, then seven, then ten, then fifteen and twenty. And all I know is that I have to keep myself safe.

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My name is Eu Jin. I recently embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. A big supporter of personal growth, I also dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste. If you would like to find out more or share your thoughts, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website. Thank you very much!