Weird Auditions Don’t Make Better Theatre
by Chris Peterson
Someone messaged me recently and basically said, “I need to tell you about the weirdest audition I’ve ever heard.”
That’s already a strong start. Because if you’ve been in theatre long enough, you know exactly what that sentence means.
They described walking into the room expecting the usual. Cold readings. Maybe a monologue. Maybe some light movement. Instead, they were handed a worksheet.
Write down five things that are important to you. A secret no one would ever know by looking at you. Your views on religion. Finish the sentence, “I am always the one who…” Then everyone was asked to take off their shoes and do some awkward squatting exercise together, because apparently the fastest way to find the right actor is to see who’s willing to do barefoot lunges with strangers. After all that, everyone auditioning was given a half hour to put together a 10-minute play with a laundry list of requirements.
I’ve heard of auditions where actors had to lie on the floor and breathe together before being “allowed” to read. Ones where you had to share a childhood memory just to prove you were open enough to be considered. Ones where you’re asked to improvise a fight, a seduction, or an emotional breakdown with someone you met six minutes ago, with no boundaries discussed and no indication that consent is part of the process. I’ve even heard of actors being asked to dance to music they couldn’t hear, because the director wanted to “see how they respond to silence,” which is a sentence that should come with a warning label.
At some point, we have to ask: what exactly are we auditioning for here?
I want to be clear. I’m not anti-experiment. I’m not anti-devised work when it’s actually… devised. But auditions are not rehearsals. They are not business retreats. And they are definitely not confessionals.
There’s a certain type of director who defends these exercises by saying they’re “trying to see who you really are.” What they’re often actually seeing is who is willing to overshare on command, who has learned how to perform vulnerability as a skill, and who is quietly ignoring their own discomfort because they really want the role.
Your views on religion do not tell me if you can tell a story. Your trauma animal does not tell me if you can listen to a scene partner. Your deepest secret does not tell me if you can take direction without spiraling.
Actors are allowed to have boundaries. Auditions should respect them.
The problem with these “weird” audition methods is that they often confuse discomfort with depth. If someone freezes during an exercise that feels more like a social experiment than a casting process, that’s not a lack of talent. That’s a nervous system doing exactly what nervous systems do.
The irony is that the directors who reject traditional auditions because they want something more “real” often end up with performances that feel anything but. If you want to see how someone collaborates, put them in a scene and give them an adjustment. If you want to see how they think, ask them why they made the choices they made. If you want to see who they are, watch how they treat the room.
You do not need barefoot rituals, trauma prompts, or long stares into a stranger’s soul to get there.
Auditions don’t have to be cold or clinical. But they shouldn’t be invasive, confusing, or performatively strange either. Actors are not raw material. They are professionals offering you their craft, not their therapy intake forms.