audition songs to avoid
audition songs to avoid
#1audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/18/08 at 1:00pmI'm auditioning for schools this year, what are some audition songs that I definitly want to avoid?
www.tinydancer5.tumblr.com
WOSQ
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/03
#2re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/18/08 at 1:20pmAnything that cannot be sight-read unless you take your own accompanist. "The Miller's Son" has been murdered so many times by people who just cannot play it.
"If my life weren't funny, it would just be true. And that would be unacceptable."
--Carrie Fisher
#2re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/18/08 at 3:01pm
Is that Schubert? or is that the Millers Daughter?
Apparently as fantastic as they are ALL Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown...
ShbrtAlley44
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/1/03
#3re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/18/08 at 4:13pm
It's Sondheim, from A Little Night Music.
Might I add anything from Wicked, The Last 5 Years, Songs For a New World, Tick Tick Boom, Rent, etc etc?
LePetiteFromage
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/19/08
#6re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/18/08 at 9:08pm
Don't sing Wicked Rent or Thoroughly Modern Millie.
All terribly overdone. If the show is relatively new and is still ON Broadway, don't do it.
"I told you, NO Rodgers and Hammerstein!"- Bart Simpson
LuckyCharm
Swing Joined: 7/31/07
#7re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/18/08 at 10:54pm
Do not sing "I Dreamed A Dream". I can't tell you how many times my music teachers told my class to avoid that song for auditions.
Also if you are a girl don't sing a guys song and vise virsa. Unless you have a really good reason to back it up with, but it's better to stick with your gender.
Robos89
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/06
#8re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/18/08 at 11:43pmGoing off of LuckyCharm, trying sticking to things age appropriate!
?
#9re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/19/08 at 1:15am
If it has been on broadway in the past ten years, do NOT do it.
Anything cliche, such as Wicked, Rent, Tick Tick Boom, Your A Good Man..., The Last 5 Years, etc.
Any Sondheim, JRB, etc.
Anything your parents made you watch when you were little: Sound of Music, Grease, etc.
My favorite way to pick songs is to look at what won Tony's in like the past, then go from there. Just research.
Good luck!
"When you wish upon a star, you just might become one."
#10re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/19/08 at 12:07pmI was thinking of "Much More" from the Fantasticks and "I Know the Truth" from Aida. Both of them I have sang with my voice teacher and do them justice. Good choices?
www.tinydancer5.tumblr.com
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#12re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/20/08 at 11:12am"I Know the Truth" is much more overdone than "Much More". If you only wanted to scrap one, I would scrap that ("I Know the Truth"). But you should be looking to have a killer audition package, so don't settle. I've made that mistake a few times. If you feel like you're settling, don't do it. Find a better song. Don't do things because they're alright or because you do them justice. Do them because they're amazing and because you ROCK them.
sleepyguy1717
Broadway Star Joined: 8/1/07
#13re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/20/08 at 2:02pm
Whatever you do thought, SOMEONE else is going o be doing it that day. 
Lame. The most important part is to sing it the best (is that a word?). I'm sure if someone went in there and sang Defying Gravity, but sounded the best the auditioners have ever heard it, they would probably forget that everyone and their mother does it.
I want to apologize for some offensive messages posted on this board under my name. The night 0f 12-15-08 I did not have internet access, and someone had used my name to post something offensive. My avatar was also changed. I dont' know what else was posted, or if anyone recieved bad PMs, but I want to apologize for that. I've changed my password, and even though I was not the one posting these messages it still needed to be corrected.
#14re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/20/08 at 8:33pm
Okay, so my secret weapon for audition songs is this one song that, at least in my experience, every single time the people holding the audition either say that they've never heard it before or they haven't heard it in forever.
Actually, on that note, 1 that they say they've never heard, and 1 that they say they haven't heard in forever.
BWAHA BECAUSE I LIKE CAUING SO MUCH TENSION you can pm me if you wanna know the songs Im talking about. Most of you will probably have heard of this, but here in CT EVERY THEATRE PERSON I KNOW has no idea of it's existence. For me, it's the perfect song: it shows range, and acting ability, it's not long and it's rare. YAY!
#15re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/20/08 at 10:44pmmoulin724rouge (sorry if I got that wrong), you don't accept private messages!
#16re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/21/08 at 3:51pm
My advice is to research all the musicals and reviews written by the Gershwins, like 'Song of the Flame', or try 'It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman!' or Sondheim's 'Follies', 'Merrily We Roll Along', '70, Girls, 70', 'Good News', 'Steel Pier', 'On the Twentieth Century', 'High Spirits' etc.
Or go for an Ahrens and Flahrety that didn't do so well but has good music, like 'Lucky Stiff' or 'Dessa Rose'
The old musicals have the best uptempos. No joke.
#17re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/21/08 at 6:03pmI absolutely agree with that. Whoever said doing the classics is outdated was smoking something severe. Classics are not always "easy", but (especially in the case of anything Gershwin), they never fail to show a lot of range. Also, it's SO important to choose a song that will help show off acting, and the classics are awsome for this.
Broadway_freak
Broadway Star Joined: 11/4/04
#18re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/24/08 at 2:16amHow is "I Have Dreamed" from The King and I and "Take A Chance On Me" from Little Women?
#19re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/24/08 at 5:20am
Bad and worse. The King and I is a classic musical. Stay away from the movie musicals and Little Women is too recent and overdone.
Try Triumph or Love or The Spitfire Grill
#20re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/25/08 at 9:04am
Yeah, I agree with max.
But, just so you aren't confused - "Triumph of Love," not "Triumph" or "Love." I don't know if, not knowing the show, you would have read it differently because of the accidental "or" instead of "of".
If you're having trouble choosing songs that you think are - I don't know - obscure enough/good enough, you could try a fun little game I spent half of my spring break doing (out of boredom...and partially out of necessity). Go to a comprehensive musical theatre source (even wikipedia has big pretty complete lists of musicals produced or written,etc.), pick out some musicals here and there, look them up on iTunes or another music downloading souce, listen to the clips of songs, download the ones that sound promising...and go to town listening and choosing and buying the sheet music. Hah, I had fun doing that. =]
#21re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/25/08 at 12:30pmDo these rules apply if you're submitting a CD as a supplement? The common app has an arts supplement that I'm sending in and they want 10 minutes of "technical range." I thought I'd do Voi Che Sapete, Home (from Phantom), and either A Part of That or Still Hurting. Bad idea?
#22re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/25/08 at 4:59pm
Whoops, typo hahah
Triumph OF Love.
No Phantom and no L5Y. C'mon guys, get daring with song choices. Stand out. Do your research!
#23re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/25/08 at 5:57pm
That's what I'm talkin' 'bout! You go girl.
Hah, it just so happens that I actually learned how to audition AFTER I got to college and realized how silly I had been, so really...I should have posted a question in this thread a year and a half ago. Good thing you guys are asking instead of just plowing ahead with embarrassingly overcooked songs. =P
#24re: audition songs to avoid
Posted: 8/25/08 at 9:40pmSo now that I've gone back and done my research haha, I was thinking of a few different options instead. How's "Wherever He Ain't" from Mack & Mabel and "Will He Like Me?" from She Loves Me. Two others I really like are "I'll Show Him" from Plain and Fancy and "Keep it Simple" from Oh, Captain. Let me know :)
www.tinydancer5.tumblr.com
Videos