Auditions for Panto

Its summertime. You’ve just got back from your holidays. The kids will be starting school again soon and it’s time to scratch that showbusiness itch once again and start preparing for the next production. The annual Christmas pantomime. For a lot of production companies both amateur and professional, and even venues themselves, the pantomime season is the money spinner that helps see the venue or the company through the rest of the year, and even providing funding for other productions. It brings in the largest amount of repeat business passing down from generation to generation and is often a child’s first experience of live theatre. It is vitally important that Pantomime is done right.

The preparations for the pantomime will normally start as soon as the summer show has finished. Maybe even before. The sooner preparations start the better. You ideally want to give your company plenty of notice of the show that you intend to put on and when it’ll be staged. This will give them a good chance to get excited about it and tell their friends and family. This also provides more time to sell those all-important tickets.

Once you have chosen your script (we highly recommend ours : ) ), the first thing you should do is put up, or email out a list of characters that are included in the show that your potential cast can audition for. At this point you might notice that there are more people wanting to audition for some parts more than others, especially if your company has a lot more of one gender than the other. History shows that with community companies, often there are a lot more female members than there are male or other genders. This can be rectified by simply advertising in your local community.

Once you have displayed the characters that are available and have a list of interested people for each one, you can provide the audition pieces that the potential cast members will perform. These will vary in length. The audition pieces for your princes and princesses will be slightly longer than other characters as they are on the stage the most. These audition pieces would normally consist of segments from two or three scenes of contrasting tone to display the performer’s ability with different emotions. The pieces would also consist of two contrasting songs to show the performers vocal range. These would normally be an upbeat recent pop song and a more melancholic song or power ballad. Your villain, dame and comic character audition pieces will normally consist of one or two several minute speeches and any character relevant song that they may have. Kings, queens and parents are normally shorter roles, and their audition pieces will probably be just a single speech. Lastly, but certainly not least will be your minor principals. These are speaking roles which are short and possibly just in one scene. Their audition pieces will either be just a few lines or the entire part. Panto wouldn’t be panto without song and dance and no doubt your theatre group will have a troupe of dancers within it. The dancing auditions might very well be held on a separate day or even week to the rest of the auditions if your venue only has one room to use. This way the choreographer can use the whole space to run their auditions.

During the auditions, even though a thoroughly learnt piece of script can be a real help, it is best not to expect those lines to be perfect. After all people have busy lives outside of the society and, if there are other theatre groups nearby, they may well be rehearsing or auditioning for multiple shows at the same time. There might be an occasion where, due to unforeseen circumstances, a performer might have to audition at a different time or pull out altogether. So, you need to be flexible. One thing that certainly can help is if you know the audtionee or have seen them perform with other societies and therefor have an idea of their potential.

Casting is not always as straight forward as who performs the role the best. Sometimes the casting of one person can depend on the casting of another. Things like height and age can come into play. For example, if an average height twenty-two-year-old is auditioning for the part of the princess and can belt out a ballad , It’s going to be strange if you cast her next to a tall 38 year old prince with a deep voice who might be better suited for a villain role.

In a lot of local societies. There will be members who have been there years and years. Decades even. Some directors might feel the need to give them a main part through loyalty, and fear that if they don’t, then said member will leave the society and take a substantial amount of audience with them. What I would recommend is to not be afraid of doing what is best for the show. If there is no part suitable for that member, do not be afraid to not cast them. Audition rejection is part of both paid and unpaid sectors of showbusiness and we all know this going in. they might not be too happy with you about it or they might be very respectful gracious. As for losing a fan base audience? Currently, more and more people are gaining following on social media. Especially performers. New members will bring in a new audience. Especially if those members younger and even more so if they are drama students or children with a long list of family wanting to come watch.

Above all, keep the experience fun. That is, after all, why members keep coming back year after year. Because they have fun. Performing with a community theatre group is a social life with a massive difference. You all have one thing in common. To escape into a different world for a time and to bring your watching friends and family with you.