A Stoic's Take on Auditioning

In recent months, I've listened to many of my peers lament the struggles of life as

an actorin particular, the shenanigan that is Audition Season. I can't begin to take

away any of the difficulty of this time of year, and I applaud those who stick it out and

persevere through all of the trials, tribulations, and waiting in lines. I've been there too:

Waking up at five in the morning to wait in line outside Pearl Studios, sitting in a holding

room full of people behaving in ways equivalent to nails on a chalkboard, waiting all that

time only to not even get seen, and, the hardest to deal with of all, not getting a callback

or booking the job. There have been plenty of times where I have allowed any or all of

these situations to get to me, but recently, I've found a way of thinking that has allowed

me to leave these annoyances behind. What I seek to do here is to break down how this

new philosophy has helped me stay sane amidst the craziness. That philosophy is

called Stoicism.

The philosophy of Stoicism has been around for thousands of years. When the

word "stoic" comes up though, many take it as meaning "devoid of emotions," or "stone-

faced," but Stoicism goes much deeper than that. The basic tenet of Stoicism is to

recognize what is within your control and what is not, and that what isn't in your control

doesn't matter. The philosophy goes much further than that, but I think you can already

imagine how this could apply to auditioning. To delve further, the only thing that is truly

under your control is your mind. You can't control how tall you are; you can try, but can't

really control if you get sick; most of all, you can't control how other people act or what

other people think of you.

 Another important part of Stoicism, one that all the classic philosophers write

about in one way or another, is to live in accordance with Nature. Now, this doesn't

mean ditch your phone and your car and go live in the woods. The Stoics thought that

all things have a purpose given to them by Nature, and that all things should live in

accordance with that purpose. You may feel that you have your own purpose, but I

would argue that the purpose of a human being is to grow and evolve. Creatures that

fail to do this eventually die out.

So how the heck does this actually apply to auditioning?

Let's start at the very beginning of an audition day: The Ass-Crack of dawn.

One of my favorite passages from Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" reads:

"At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: "I

have to go to work - as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I am going to

do what I was born for - the very things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this

what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? 'But its nicer

here So you were born to feel nice? Instead of doing things and experiencing

them?"

Could there be a more direct reference to auditioning? You have chosen to be an

actor. To live in accordance with your Nature, how shall you grow and evolve? By

performing. How will you get to perform? By auditioningwhich is still performing!

Waking up may be hard, but what are you waking up for? Not to go to a soul-sucking

desk job, not to go to a boring 8am gen-ed class, you're waking up to go do what you

love!

Who is actually surprised by having to wake up early for an audition? People do it

all the time for other things that they are passionate about: book/movie releases,

concert tickets; why would auditioning be any different? The day I stopped being

bothered by waking up early for an audition was the day I accepted it as a given. You

know that you'll need to wake up early, so does everyone else, so why grumble? In

addition, think about what is involved in getting to that audition, a half-hour subway ride?

I remember when I would drive four hours from my school in central PA, audition, and

then drive four hours back. An early wake-up is nothing when there isn't also eight hours

of driving involved.

The point is, being frustrated and complaining about how early you have to wake

up won't change the fact that you have to wake up early. Accept it. You are waking up to

do what you were put on this earth to do. So do it!

So, the doorman at Pearl has finally let you up into the holding room. You're now

faced with sitting in that studio for an unspecified amount of time; could be an hour,

could be all day. Tensions often run high, and it's no help that other people sometimes

behave in ways that you are annoyed by. Notice I say you are annoyed by, not that

annoy you. More on that later.

Again, Marcus Aurelius knows exactly what to say:

 When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal

with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are

like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and

the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my

own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of

the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor

can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet,

hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is

unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.

Sounds like most every holding room I've ever been in. Recognize that everyone

in the room is on the same team; we all have the same goal. If someone is running their

mouth about who they worked with at such-and-such a place, so what? Does this

physically harm you? Does it prevent you from living a Natural life? It shouldn't.

When you anticipate people acting in such ways, you give yourself the

opportunity to prepare and steel yourself. I don't mean prepare to grumble; I mean

prepare to be indifferent to such behavior. Because, ultimately, what actual harm can

this behavior do to you?

Don't allow yourself to be annoyed by this; that's why I made that distinction

earlier. Epictetus says, man is affected not by events, but by the view he takes of

them. Someone doing their makeup right next to you or stretching in your way is not in

itself annoying, it just is. You perceive it to be annoying, and in this way, allow yourself

to be annoyed by it.
 Walk into that holding room with an attitude of preferred indifference (another

Stoic device). That is, you would prefer everyone to behave quietly and politely, but you

are indifferent to whether or not they actually do.

This may be all well and good if you have an audition to look forward to, but what

if the holding room is as far as you get? What if you don't get seen?

No inspirational quote this time. What a Stoic would use here is a device called a

negative visualization. This is basically a rehearsal. You mentally rehearse an

unfavorable event so that you can practice how you'll react to it. When you do this

practice, you'll find it easier and easier to be indifferent to that event. So rehearse not

getting seen. Rehearse waking up at five in the morning, standing in line outside in

January, waiting in a holding room all day, and not getting seen. More importantly,

rehearse how you will react. Will you react with anger and frustration? Or with cool

indifference knowing that not getting seen was a real possibility? Which option do you

think is healthier?

I would also add to this that the circumstances that determine if you do or do not

get seen are so far outside of your control that it's hardly even worth a minor

annoyance!

So now that you've gotten through all of these previous audition steps, you've

gone in and sung your best sixteen, and now you're playing the waiting game, which

more often than not doesn't pan out. Not getting a callback or booking the job is easily

the hardest thing to deal with, but, as I'm sure you've guessed, there's a quote for that.
 Require not things to happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as

they do happen, and you will go on well.

-Epictetus

No matter how high your hopes are, no matter how many voice lessons you take,

no matter how many hours you spend in a practice room, what happens after you walk

out of the room will never be within your control. Wish all you want; if they like you, they

like you; if they don't, they don't. Now, you can go home and stew about how right you

were for the show or how well you felt you danced, but what good is that when you have

no control over what they think of you? Know that whatever happens will happen,

whether you like it or not, so why bother getting worked up about it when no part of the

decision is in your hands?

So what about an audition can you control? A few things: You control how

prepared you are; you control how much you work on your material. You control your

mental state as you walk into the room; you control how well you perform your piece (at

least to your standards). This is by no means an exhaustive list, but if you meet all of

these standards (or your own personal benchmarks) to your satisfaction, then you have

done all you can do; the die is cast! And if you didn't do your best? The die is still cast!

The most important thing about an audition that you can control however, is how

you react to the result. Seneca says, He is most powerful who has power over himself.

You have the power to be unfazed by the result, positive or negative, of your audition.

You have the power to have someone tell you that you are not good enough, or that
you're too fat, too skinny, too short or tall, and be completely indifferent to their opinion

of you. You may have an initial emotional trigger to this, but it is within in your power to

tell that emotion, no. That's a superpower!

Stoics praise logic and reason above all else. It makes sense since these are

unique human abilities. In reality, they are the reason that our species is as high on the

food chain as it is. We didn't get here because we could outrun lions, or best them in a

fight. We got here because we could out-think them. Think about that for a second. Of

all the creatures on this planet, Homo sapiens are the ONLY ones gifted with logic and

reason; I consider it a slight against all of our ancestors not to use them. I like to say,

any monkey can pitch a fit and fling its poop around, that doesn't set us apart from

them. Our ability to think logically and empathize is our own unique ability. You

shortchange your entire existence if you don't use that.

A short and sweet, but incredible piece of wisdom that Marcus Aurelius left us

with is that Life is opinion. It is not events that affect your opinion; it is your opinion that

affects how you feel about events. How you perceive any given event has a profound

effect on your peace of mind. If my opinion is that I'm going to have a terrible day

because I have to wake up early, sit in a room with annoying people, probably not get

seen, and if I do get seen, won't hear anything afterwords, then a terrible day is the only

possible outcome. But, if I wake up knowing that I am rising to pursue my lifes purpose,

that other people's behavior can have no real lasting effect on me, that I've accepted

possibly not getting seen, and rehearsed my reaction, and that no matter how well I do,

I might not be what the director wants and there's nothing I can do about it, then the
entire tone of the day changes. The events are exactly the same. The only thing that

changes is my opinion of them.

This is a lot to take in. If you are a very emotional person, wearing your heart

your sleeve, it may be difficult to implement these practices immediately. But, that's

exactly why it's called a practice. The Stoics have a persona called the Sage. The

Sage is the perfect Stoic. The Sage is never overcome with emotions. The Sage lives

every moment fully because the present moment is all the Sage possesses. The Sage

is completely indifferent to others opinions of the Sage. The Sage knows exactly what

living a life in accordance with Nature entails, and never does anything to the contrary.

Most importantly, you will never become the Sage. We are emotional beings; it's

impossible for us to have our emotions completely in check at all times. There are times

where we will be lazy with the present moment. There will be instances where we do

things that work against our Nature. That's completely fine! Knowing you will never

touch the Sage means that making mistakes is okay, and expected. What's not okay is

wallowing in those mistakes. Instead, learn from those mistakes; use them as a

reference: Well, I know I should never do that again. And you know what? You

probably will do it again! And that, too, is okay! As long as you are honest with yourself

about your mistakes and make every effort to keep striving towards the Sage ideal, you

are on the right track.

Since were all forging our way up that mountain that is show biz, I'll leave you

with this, again from Aurelius, If it is humanly possibly, consider it to be within your

reach.