Friday, January 14, 2011

Auditions and rehearsals

I'm doing my best to keep this blog moving and still keep it interesting. My hope is to start keeping this interesting.

We had our first auditions last week. We had 47 people sign up on Facebook and on our website. Only 18 people showed up. I mentioned in my last blog that the criteria for making the team was wide open. This was certainly true. I was basically looking at people who looked comfortable on stage, knew a little improv and a third criteria that I didn't anticipate...distance.

I decided to make distance a criteria, especially for those that I felt was on the border. I eliminated about 3 people using this criteria. My feeling was that many of the people I took had experience, but needed more teaching. Was it going to be worth teaching people who where going to travel well over an hour to get to the location. Also the further someone has to travel the more likely they are to quit the team.

I found 12 good people and a former NCTer, Dick Spenneberg join on for a total of 14 people including me.

Not bad. I definitely hope most will stay around. I suppose I can do a show with 14 people, but that's a lot of burden to place on a small group.

I want my show to feature 7 people. 3-on-3 with a referee but we can survive on 2-on-2 with a referee.

The next phase is training and team building. Our first rehearsal was this past Tuesday. All but 2 showed up. I knew about the two who would not be there. We learned the NCT warm-ups and I began to teach our opening games, What Are You Doing and Sideline Debate.

I'm teaching the gimmick games now, because we have an improv boot camp next week, where I'll teach the basics of scene-based games. So only gimmicks for now.

Regarding team building, my goal is to keep momentum high, while coming through on the promise of teaching valuable improv skills. Wish me look.

Until next time...

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Auditions...Today

Well the day has come and the Auditions are about 2 and a half hours away at the Fullerton Marriott. Am I nervous? Yes. I'm not so nervous about the audition itself, but I'm more nervous about the event running smoothly.

Fortunately I have a great team helping me out. I've got 2 friends from the San Diego NCT running a few of the games and it helps that they've been here before.

I've also got family and friends helping with registration. My hope all goes well and smoothly and I can just get what I need done.

That said, getting the word out about the audition was not easy at all. Let me share what worked and what didn't.

What worked, Facebook ads. Nice and cheap. Networking. I got a lot of sign ups from friends of friends.

What didn't work. Posting at colleges. This was my fault. I couldn't get the notice up until a week before finals. Result. No college students attending.

Back Stage West. I got 2 referrals for $75. I'm glad they gave me 50% off my listing.

Check in and I'll tell you how things went.