How to Audition for a New Play (When There’s No Production to Watch)

The audition notice says world premiere. You do what you’d do for any play: search for a clip, a production photo, a review, anything that shows you how the part has been played. There’s nothing. Nobody has played it. The only version of this character that exists is the one on the PDF in your inbox.

Then you notice the last line of the email. The playwright will be at the audition.

The short version: read the whole play more than once, and build the character from the page, because there’s no one to copy. Say the words exactly as written, since the person who wrote them is listening to hear whether they work. Make one clear choice you can trace back to the text. Ask a question only when it helps you play the scene. And be ready to talk about the play, because in a new-play room you’ll often be asked what you think of it.

Know who’s at the table, and why it matters

At an audition for a revival, the writer is usually a name on the cover. At a new play, the writer is often in the room. The Playwrights Realm’s guide to casting a new play says the writer, director, and casting director will typically all be at auditions, with the producer or artistic director joining at callbacks and the final hiring talks.

That isn’t a courtesy seat. The Dramatists Guild’s Bill of Rights, the Guild’s statement of the rights a writer should have in a production, says the writer may attend casting and has the right to mutually approve the cast with the producer. Where a contract follows it, the person who wrote your lines has a real say in whether you get to say them.

So you’re auditioning for the part and for the play. The writer wants to hear what their words sound like in an actor’s mouth, and whether the character they imagined survives contact with a real person.

Read the whole play, then read it again

Play auditions often come with the full script, not just sides. The Casting Directors’ Guild’s audition guidelines for plays say you’ll probably be sent the whole play and must read all of it, because a director will very often ask what you think of it. Theater casting director Lucy Jenkins makes the same point in a list of audition tips: she’d rather you read the play a few times to understand your character’s arc than spend the time memorizing. And don’t claim you’ve read it when you haven’t: “We can always tell!!”

A new play has no plot summary to lean on, so the first read is the only time you’ll meet it as an audience would. Read it straight through, without a pencil, and notice where you laughed, got lost, or wanted to know what happened next.

The second read is for your character. With a pencil, mark:

• Everything your character says about themselves, and everything other people say about them. The two lists rarely agree, and the gap is often the part.
• What your character wants in each scene they’re in, in a short phrase.
• The moment, or moments, where they change: a decision, a discovery, a line where they stop pretending.
• Any fact the audition scene depends on: who these people are to each other and what just happened offstage.

The third read, if you have time, is the one a dramaturg would do. The Playwrights Realm publishes the 20 questions a dramaturg would ask a writer about a new script. Several work just as well for an actor: What are the play’s given circumstances? What is the central conflict of the play? What changes over the course of the play? If you can answer those in a sentence each, you’ll walk in understanding the play, not just your scenes. Our guide to reading plays as an actor goes further into the habit.

Build the character from the page, not from a performance

With a revival, you’re always half in conversation with the famous version. With a new play, nobody is comparing you to anyone. The only question is whether your version is true to what’s written.

Start with the character description at the top of the script. The Playwrights Realm guide notes that theaters often use those descriptions as the casting breakdown, so they’re a direct line to what the writer pictured. But treat them as clues, not rules. Casting director Bernard Telsey told Playbill that breakdowns often shift once casting starts and the team learns something new from the director, without anyone putting out a new breakdown. His advice: read it for what helps you, “but don’t take it literally.”

Then read the writer’s choices on the page. Punctuation, pauses, a sentence that breaks off, a word repeated: in a new play these are the closest thing you have to a reference performance, because the writer put them there on purpose. Look at how Oscar Wilde builds a joke into one speech in The Importance of Being Earnest:

ALGERNON: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?

LANE: I didn’t think it polite to listen, sir.

ALGERNON: I’m sorry for that, for your sake. I don’t play accurately—any one can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.

LANE: Yes, sir.

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act I

The dashes set off an aside, a little boast tucked inside the sentence, and Lane’s reply is a dodge, polite on top and pointed underneath. You don’t need to have seen a production to find that. A living writer leaves the same kind of instructions, and will notice whether you followed them.

Say the words exactly as written

This rule matters even more in a new-play room. The Casting Directors’ Guild guidelines tell actors not to approximate lines or add verbal tics like “y’know,” “like,” or “I mean,” and say this matters especially for a classic text or when the writer is in the room.

The writer is still deciding which lines work. If you paraphrase, they can’t tell whether a clunky moment came from the line or from you. If you say it word for word and it still clunks, that’s useful to them. The Dramatists Guild’s Bill of Rights says nobody, actors included, should change the script without the writer’s prior written consent. The text can change later, in rehearsal, by the writer’s hand. Our guide to script changes in a new play covers what that looks like once you’re cast.

Exact doesn’t mean memorized. The same guidelines say an audition “is not a memory test,” and that many casting directors and directors would rather you didn’t learn the lines for a first meeting, so you can concentrate on the scene. What they do want is that you know the material well enough that your head isn’t buried in the page.

A good way to get there is to hear the scene out loud, many times, with the other parts read to you. A new play has no recording to listen to, so make one. In Offbook, you upload the sides as a PDF, pick your role, give each of the other characters a voice, and start rehearsing: realistic voices read every other line and wait for yours. The video below goes from a PDF to a first run in about a minute.

Run the scene until you can glance down, take in a whole line, and say it to a person. If one speech keeps sending your eyes to the page, our free first-letter line memorizer turns it into first-letter cues, so you get familiar enough with it to keep your eyes up. For the skill of reading well with the page in hand, see our guide on how to cold read for auditions.

Make one choice the writer can see

Without a reference production, some actors play it safe with a neutral read. A neutral read is hard for a writer to use: it tells them little about the character or about you.

Make one specific choice instead, and make sure you can point to the line it came from. “She’s angry” is general. “She’s been rehearsing this conversation all week and is determined not to cry, until he says her mother’s name” is a choice the writer can see, recognize, and react to. If it doesn’t match what they imagined, you’ve still given the director something clear to redirect.

Then treat the redirect as the audition. The Casting Directors’ Guild guidelines say directors listen to how you respond to notes to see what you’ll be like to work with, not only how you act. When the play itself is still changing, being easy to redirect is part of the job. Say “great,” take the note, and play the new idea fully.

Actor Lauren English, talking to the Playwrights Foundation about new-play readings, describes her job there as doing “the best reading of the play” she can. That’s a good frame for the audition too: you’re serving the play, and the role is how you do it.

Should you ask the playwright questions?

Yes, but one at a time, and only the kind that helps you play the scene. The Casting Directors’ Guild guidelines say that if you’re unsure of something in the room, such as who you’re reading with, whether to sit or stand, or a particular word or line, you should feel free to ask, because “not everything is a test.”

Good questions to ask a writer at an audition:

• How a name or an unusual word is pronounced.
• What just happened before the scene starts, if the sides don’t say and you couldn’t tell from the full script.
• Whether a line is meant as a joke, when you honestly can’t tell.
• Confirming which version they want, if you were sent revised pages and couldn’t check beforehand.

Save for rehearsal, if you get the part: what the play is really about, why a character does what they do in act two, and anything that sounds like a rewrite. A short audition slot is not the place, and a rewrite pitch from someone who hasn’t been cast puts the writer on the spot.

When they ask what you think

The opposite question is the one to prepare. If the director or writer asks what you thought of the play, have a short, honest answer ready: what you think it’s about, one moment that stayed with you, and what drew you to the character. Thirty seconds is plenty, and specific beats flattering. “The moment she finally sits down in his chair” tells them you read it; “I loved it” doesn’t.

If the pages change before you go in

New plays can change while they’re being cast, so revised sides may arrive the night before. Prepare the newest version you’ve been sent, and if you’re not sure which is current, ask the casting office before the day.

You don’t need to bring copies for the panel. The Casting Directors’ Guild says it should be unnecessary to print scenes for them or to alter the material you were sent; they’ll have copies in the room. If something has changed at the last minute, our guide to sides that change before an audition has a plan for the hours you’ve got.

A three- to four-day prep plan

Here’s a plan if you have three or four days before the audition:

1. Day 1: read the whole play once, straight through, as an audience. Then read it again with a pencil, marking what your character wants and where they change.
2. Day 2: answer the dramaturg’s questions about the whole play, then break down the audition scene: who you’re talking to, what you want, what just happened, where it turns.
3. Day 3: run the scene out loud with the other parts read to you, several times, and choose one specific way to play it that you can trace to a line.
4. Day 4: run it again with the other parts read to you, prepare your thirty-second answer about the play, and write down one useful question in case the room invites one.

Get into new-play rooms before the audition

The best preparation for a new-play audition is having been in new-play rooms before. The Playwrights Realm guide says actors with new-play readings or world premieres on their résumé may have a better understanding of the new play process, and that readings and workshops usually cast without auditions, from headshots, résumés, and reels.

So the way in is often a database rather than a role. Minneapolis’s Playwrights’ Center, for example, holds general auditions once a year and adds actors to the pool it casts workshops from; its workshops mostly run 10 to 25 hours, on weekday mornings and afternoons. Every company casts its own way, so check the new-play developers near you for how they find actors.

Take the readings when they come. Each one teaches you how writers listen and how scripts change between drafts. Our guide to preparing for a staged reading covers how to do them well.

Questions actors ask

How do you audition for a new play?

Read the full script at least twice, once as an audience and once for your character’s wants and turning points. Break down the audition scene, choose one specific way to play it that comes from the text, and rehearse it out loud until your eyes can stay up. In the room, say the words exactly as written and take notes willingly.

Should I ask the playwright questions at an audition?

Ask if it helps you play the scene: a pronunciation, a fact about what just happened, which version of the pages to use. Save questions about the play’s meaning, and any thoughts about rewrites, for rehearsal. And be ready for the reverse, because you may be asked what you think of the play.

How do I prepare when there is no reference production?

Treat it as freedom. Build the character from what’s on the page: the character description, what they say, what others say about them, and the writer’s punctuation and pauses. Then hear the scene out loud with the other parts read to you, so you know how it moves without anyone else’s performance in your head.

Can I change a line that feels awkward?

No. Say it as written. If a line is hard to say, that’s information the writer needs, and they can only get it if you say the real line. Only the writer changes the text. If you’re cast, there will be time in rehearsal to talk about lines that aren’t working.