As a theater student, for a few years I have been meeting actor friends, men and women; they seem particularly distressed by the current times… They are pale, stressed, precarious. For what ? Because February is a month of auditions. The phone rings, one could believe in the rejoicing! Work ! However, I was surprised to learn what the conditions are for these auditions. Established actresses and actors, who we see on the big channels, in the most popular shows, often have to prepare for days to hope to get a role, even a minor one. Auditions are the worst times for them. For example, a friend recently had 11 pages of script to learn in a week for an audition. A week of work! The following week, he was called for another audition asking him to compose a choreography of his own to imposed music for a series on dance. The following week, he had to wait two hours for an audition, because the process was slowed down. I come to think that these are humiliating conditions, well below what should be acceptable as working standards. I was even more surprised to learn that auditions in the United States are much less time-consuming for artists, that it is more a question of ” cast », that is to say that we summon them to see their posture, their bodies and ask them to play a role with the text in front of them.
Being refused after doing all this work without pay is frankly difficult for our artists. Let’s take care of them, give them better working conditions — and auditions should be part of that! It is time for the UDA to decide and supervise this process.
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