Audition Tips and Tricks Series #1: The Audition 'Toddler' Bag

This past weekend, I had a heart-to-heart with my good girlfriend. She’s been going through a lot of big life changes, and had decided to start auditioning again in a new area. It was her first audition in quite a while, and ...it didn’t go well. My friend, an extremely confident individual who always performs well under pressure, felt herself slip out of control in the audition room.

“It’s like my brain went on a vacation. I couldn’t remember anything. I forgot my words, and then I was so horrified and upset that I just stood there. I froze,” she said.

‘Well, what happened directly before you walked into that room?” I asked.

“I hadn’t thought about that...I heard someone singing, and I started to get nervous. Then I started to overthink stuff outside of the door, like, while I was still in the hallway. I realized it was my first audition in over a year, and I started to get MORE nervous. Then I realized I was getting nervous, and I got EVEN MORE nervous. By the time I walked into the room, I was already a ball of nerves.”

“Well, did you bring your Emergency Kit?” I asked.

“My what??”

“Your Emergency Kit--you know, your ‘audition toddler bag’??”

“Um...what is that, exactly??”

Ohhhhh, gentle readers.

Allow me to share with you the life-changing magic of an Audition Emergency Kit.... or as I like to refer to it, “Emma’s Audition Toddler Bag”.

Every performer has one ‘trick’ they use before they perform, a ritualistic act that helps bring them into the right mental and physical space. For Beverly ‘Bubbles’ Sills, it was a shot of whiskey. For Pavarotti, it was having his manager physically kick him onstage each night.

For me, it’s my Toddler Bag.

Here’s the thing a lot of people don’t realize: I have extremely high-functioning anxiety. Like, SEVERE anxiety. I was diagnosed pretty early on, around age 18 or so. My first therapist ever told me that I was, and I quote, ‘the MOST anxious individual I’ve ever met--you sat down and I immediately started grinding my teeth from the stress rolling off of you!’

This was her reaction to me while I was sitting quietly in her waiting room, awaiting for our first session together with the door to her office ajar. #Extreme

Add the stress of auditioning into the mix, and I’m a regular moltov cocktail of mood swings--at any time, I could blow without warning.

I’ve managed to find ways to live with my anxiety and still maintain my career of choice. 9 times out of 10, I can nail an audition without a second thought--but that 10th time, just when I’m feeling secure with my abilities, something will happen. It’s like a wire gets crossed in my brain: my body goes into ‘fight or flight’ reflex seemingly without any warning. My heart starts to race, my breathing gets shallow, and ALL of my muscles tense up while my brain spirals into an analytical overdrive.

I understand that the ‘lizard part’ of my brain that causes this reaction is completely natural and necessary. It’s also inconvenient, and can practically become crippling. If I don’t catch myself in time, my nervous reactions can spiral into a full-blown panic attack before I walk into the room--or worse, DURING the actual audition. This has actually happened to me before.

After ten years’ worth of professional auditions, I’ve learned to note my behaviors and to monitor my stress levels. I know myself, I know my body and I understand the patterns that can lead up to a problem.

I’ve grown ‘accustomed to my own face’, so to speak, and I always plan for the worst--which is where the ‘Audition Toddler Bag’ comes into play.

I have a special audition bag that I bring with me everywhere. In it is an assortment of ‘calming triggers’ that I can quietly pull out and use without distracting anyone around me. Much in the same way a parent prepares for a toddler’s impending ‘meltdown’, I pack anything that might help me calm myself.

This includes but is not limited to:

-a snack (low blood sugar can cause extreme emotions)

-a bottle of water (dehydration can cause difficulty with cognitive functions in the brain)

-a pair of headphones (to block out any external triggers)

-a stretchy exercise band (to reconnect me to my body when I sing)

-a change of clothes (in case I feel the need to ‘mentally strip down’ to change my thinking process, I have the option of physically changing my appearance as well..don’t laugh, it works)

--recordings of myself that I sound particularly good in (to remind myself I’m talented)

-recordings of voice lessons (to redirect my focus onto technical aspects and not nerves.--the sound of my teacher's voice can be extremely calming for me)

-a notebook in which I write three key goals for every audition (usually ‘deep breathing, legato phrases’, etc)

-a collection of inspiring phrases (courtesy of the Fearless Performance website)

-a series of short meditation exercises (courtesy of free podcasts and websites)

-my Big Magic book, dog-eared to quickly flip to inspiring passages

In the event that my nerves kick into high gear before an audition, I have the materials and resources that I need to contain them close at hand.

This is obviously an extremely personal preference. I’m not advocating that every performer out there pack themselves a bag full of aromatherapy candles or anything, but I AM saying: know thyself. Know what sort of a person you are, and how that affects what sort of a performer you are. Know how you react when you’re stressed, and how your body feels and responds during different times of the day. Pay attention to your body and whatever signals it might be sending to you that day; the same goes for your mind. Know what your personal triggers may be and the reactions they cause, whether that be nerves or something worse. If you need something to mentally or physically prepare for an audition, acknowledge that and prepare for it.

And know that, eventually with time and practice, the entire audition process does get better.