Equity Calls and Logistics

Equity, the stage actors union, runs the open auditions for most professional theaters. Productions also hold invited calls, where actors get actual appointments, usually through agents. Most casting is done from the invited calls. But Equity requires union productions to audition Equity members whether they want to or not. Long running Broadway shows have to hold open calls even if no roles are actually available.

Do people get jobs out of open calls? It's rumored to happen on occasion. And since I don't have an agent and rarely get invited to the closed calls, I go to lots of open calls I can. Plus you get to see your friends and catch up on industry gossip. There are two types I attend, Equity Principal Auditions (EPAs) and Equity Chorus Calls for dancers (ECC).

Today a Shakespeare Festival was holding an EPA. The audition started at 10 am, but you can sign up for a time slot starting at 9 am, and I've heard stories of hopefuls lining up outside in the snow at six in the morning.

This audition was at Nola, the crappiest Equity-audition studio in Manhattan. Over half the times I've been there the toilets were not functioning, and the owner likes to yell at auditionees. A theater that holds its auditions there is likely to be cheap and not pay actors well. Plus there was a big emphasis on "any ethnicity" in the breakdown, which usually means any ethnicity but Caucasian. But I have some new Shakespeare monologues I am excited to try, and a free morning, so I decided to go. But I wasn't motivated enough to get out of bed when my alarm went off at 8:15. I snoozed until 9:15. I got to Nola a few minutes before 10, and all the audition slots (about 130) were full, so I signed up as number 23 on the alternate list, which means I can sit in the overcrowded audition room all day, and if 23 actors with slots don't show up, I'm in. So I'll go back after a dance call this afternoon and bring a book and maybe I'll get to audition before it ends at 5:30.

I walked over to the Equity office in Times Square to sign up for upcoming dance calls. The lists are posted a week before the audition. I signed up as number 247 and 243 for two auditions for regional theaters tomorrow. Not every dancer on the list shows up at the audition, but then some show up who never made it to the Equity building that week, plus there are usually over 100 non-union dancers trying to be seen also. That's a lot of competition, and we’re not even counting the invited calls for the people they're really interested in.

I know I should get out of bed early and sign up right at 9 for EPAs, and head down to the Equity office promptly one week before a dance call to sign up, but it's hard to motivate, since sometimes you can show up late or not sign up and still get a slot just fine, so why make the extra effort? I wish we could sign up online or via phone or something to reduce this unnecessary schlepping around the city.

Sometimes I feel like someone sick of dating too cynical to give a relationship a chance. But with dating, at least the numbers are somewhat plausible. Auditioning is like being on The Bachelor, but with 246 other contestants, plus the guy's probably already married.

A typical holding room at a dance call (the first thirty girls are already in the audition room, and there are oodles out in the hallway):