Overused Audition Songs?

[broadwayboy987]

Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:30pm

Currently, what are the most overused male and female audition songs?

Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:32pm

Les Miserables.

[Starship]

Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:38pm

FOR ADULTS: I Dreamed A Dream/Popular/Defying Gravity/Everything Andrew Lloyd Webber for females and anything from Rent, Corner of the Sky, Sondheim, etc. for males.
FOR YOUTH: Tomorrow/Popular/My New Philosophy for females and Go the Distance for males. Updated On: 3/30/13 at 09:38 PM

[Neverandy]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 12:01am

This is for the New York non-eq and Equity professional audition scene. If you were to steal someone's binder while waiting in line at any audition, you would have an 80-90% chance of finding at least one of these songs.
In no particular order-

Street where you live
My white knight
Shixa goddess
Her Face
Soliloquy (carousel)
Vanilla Ice Cream
Gimme Gimme
Son of a Preacher Man
Alone
High Flying Adored
If I Can't Love Her
Popular
You can Always count on me
Here I am
I love a piano.
Streets of Dublin
I'm Alive
Why God
Martin Guerre
If I only had a brain
I know the truth

[lizzieshername]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 1:01am

"Pulled" from the Addams Family
"On My Way" from Violet (heard it a good ten times at Chicago Unifieds this year)
"I Know the Truth"
"Live Out Loud" from A Little Princess
"Dyin' Ain't So Bad" from Bonnie and Clyde
"Spark of Creation"
"Much More"
Anything Millie, Les Mis, Last 5 Years, Wicked, My Fair Lady, and Phantom of the Opera.

[Kelly2]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 1:03am

Don't forget "Life of the Party". Ugh.

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 7:32am

Very interesting but I have a question. Since I have no idea what it is like to audition for a show, I was wondering if it is wise to sing something that is obscure and not well known. Just curious.

[temms]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 8:14am

Having been in literally thousands of hours of auditions over the years, in the end we just want to hear what you do best.

I hear so many terrible, terrible, awful songs at auditions, usually from a workshop or reading or demo or something that the actor has done. I would SOOOO prefer to hear any of the songs listed here than some of the utter depressing crap that passes for "up and coming" today. If it's a good song, fine, but they so very rarely are.

Songs are overdone because they're good. If you kick ass on the song, you've done your job. Once you get to callbacks, everybody sings the same song, anyway. I see so many actors freak out because somebody sang the same song as them right before them. But it happens EVERY DAY! There are a finite number of songs, and mathematically the odds are you're eventually going to get two people in a row singing the same thing. I've seen actors shoot themselves in the foot by changing their song at the last second because the person before them did the same song, and it almost never goes well.

And "overdone" moves in cycles. 9 years ago, "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" was apparently the ONLY male pop song in the world. These days I almost never hear it. Starship's list, for example, isn't terribly current. I hear almost no ALW or Les Miz (though that may change with the film.)

I will never tire of hearing "Mister Snow" sung well. A good casting director is watching you perform, not judging you on your song choice (unless it's a bad song, inappropriate for the call, or just plain wrong for the actor doing it.)

[Neverandy]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 9:20am

great post Temms.

[temms]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 9:39am

Thanks, Neverandy. Your list is pretty spot on. Some newer songs I'm suddenly hearing a lot - "The Lady Must Be Mad" and "Highway Miles" (Pete Mills), "Run Away With Me" (Kerrigan/Lowdermilk), "Wall Lovin'" and "All At Once" (Carner & Gregor), "Monticello" (Pasek & Paul).

I usually say there are three basic "Don't"s in auditions:

1. Don't disrespect the process - we know auditioning sucks, we know you're nervous, we know you've been waiting, we know you've never worked with this pianist, but please, just do your job.

2. Don't take off your clothes in the audition room unless requested ahead of time by the creative team. You'd be surprised how often this happens.


Otherwise, break a leg!

Updated On: 5/7/19 at 09:39 AM

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 10:04am

temms - Thanks for response, appreciated the information. My daughters have had dance auditions (college, ballet/modern companies) so I had general idea what was required for dance but was interested in hearing your answers about musical audition and comparing the differences.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 10:43am

The other thing to keep in mind when bringing in something obscure is how well will your accompanist be able to play it. Yes, the majority of the accompanists out there are fantastic sight readers, but it always helps when they have at least some familiarity with a piece. And of course you never know when you might have somebody who's a last minute replacement behind the piano that might not be as skilled and is relying on people bringing in songs they already know and are familiar with.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 10:53am

And speaking as a piano player who occasionally fills in for piano at auditions, if you're going to do an obscure song with a complex piano part, try to find an arrangement that already has the chords on the page or find someone who can write what the chords are. If I know what the chord should be when there's a lot of notes on the page, I'll get a heck of a lot closer to what you're used to than if I have no clue what the chords are.

As for choosing obscure songs, I did a lot of them when auditioning. I made sure to choose songs that had a reasonable piano part and still had the same impact without the full orchestrations. I made sure that my 8/16/32 bar cuttings justified why I would choose a lesser-known song. Meaning, if you do an obscure song, it should be a song that showcases you like nothing else can. It's not enough to be a good song. It has to be a great song for you.

[temms]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 11:30am

To add to the be-kind-to-your-pianist points, if you're getting a song online from MusicNotes or one of those places where you can transpose it, check to make sure (or have a musically knowledgable friend check) that it's in a playable key. D# Major and Eb Major are the same key, but if it's written in D# it will be nearly impossible to play for even the best pianists.

You would think that these services wouldn't do it, but I get so many pieces of music with every chord labeled as a double-sharp, or a C Major chord spelled B#-Fb-Abb with a Dbb chord indication, etc. It's genuinely frustrating and so easily avoided.

[OperaBwayLover]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 1:44pm

I've also learned that you should not pick a song that starts off slow, then speeds up to a faster tempo. I auditioned for a production of Crazy for You with the title song from 42nd Street, the opening section with Peggy singing. I went over it with the pianist, noting how it started off slow, then it's a repeat of the same lyrics, just a bit faster. When I was ready, somehow there was a mix-up and the whole thing was fast. Completely threw me off. I kept getting called up to the front at the dance audition portion because I knew the combo, but I didn't get cast. I blame the song disaster.

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 1:51pm

Here's my thought process: if you choose an overdone song, make sure you can sing the sh!t out of it. If it showcases you better than an obscure song, go with the overdone one. In the end all that matters is if you're talented and fit the role.

[Patash]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 3:10pm

A few years ago for one show, I think I heard 5 girls do Summer in Ohio. Each of them was sure she was being obscure.

[MCfan2]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 5:28pm

They did a funny scene about this on "Bunheads" -- Sutton's character was going to sing "I Dreamed a Dream" at an audition until the pianist warned her not to because it was so overused. (Actually, it would be more accurate to say "until the pianist threw a fit." ) She ended up doing "If They Could See Me Now" instead.

[theminutepast]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 5:29pm

If only five women out of hundreds chose that song, that couldn't have been so bad.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 5:39pm

I have to add onto what temms wrote about the key. I do a lot of arranging and transpositions for people. The computer software that transposes instantly is convenient but not intuitive. If you're transposing a song down a whole step from C to Bb, there's a good chance the program will print the Bb key signature but then do everything on the page with sharps. If you read music, you can catch it, but you have to actually look. The online programs at the sheet music sites do this sometimes but not always.

Check your music. Make sure the pianist can read it. Make sure it's in the right key. Make sure it's written in a logical way. And make sure you tell the piano player what you need at the audition. You don't get to walk up to us before the audition just for show. You set the tempo and you give us the cues you we need to know, especially if it's a lesser-known song.

I've had more trouble playing poorly written transpositions of Rodgers & Hammerstein or Lerner & Loewe songs at auditions than really clean and properly written arrangements of songs by composers I'd never even heard of before.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 3/31/13 at 10:38pm

^^^ It helps to get the high notes.