School Play Audition Tips: What to Expect and How to Prepare

The flyer is on the drama room door. Auditions for the fall play are next Thursday after school, sign up on the sheet, “be prepared to read from the script.” You’ve written your name down. Now you have a week and a lot of questions. What does “read from the script” mean? Do you need a monologue? What if your voice shakes?

Most of the stress comes from not knowing what will happen in the room. School auditions follow a few common patterns, and once you know them you can prepare for every one.

The short version: read the whole play before the audition, practice reading scenes out loud that you’ve never seen, and get ready to try the same lines in different ways. The directors and drama teachers cited below keep coming back to the same two things: come prepared, and take direction well.

What actually happens at a school play audition

Every school runs auditions a little differently, so the first job is to read the audition notice closely and ask the director anything it doesn’t answer. Most auditions use one or more of these formats:

• Cold readings. You’re handed a page or two from the play and given a few minutes to look it over before reading it aloud, often with another student.
• Group reads. Several students read a scene together, and the director swaps who reads which part.
• A prepared monologue. Some schools ask for a short memorized speech, often about a minute long.
• A song. For a musical, you’ll usually sing a short cut of a song, sometimes with a dance call afterward.
• Callbacks. A second round for the students the director wants to see again.

Drama teacher Kerry Hishon explains on Theatrefolk why so many teachers use cold readings: they lower the stress of choosing a piece, everyone reads the same material, and nobody has to memorize anything. They also let the director pair students who don’t usually work together and see who has chemistry.

That last point matters. Hishon notes that pairing students shows how they interact, so you aren’t only being judged on your own lines. How you listen and react while your partner is talking is part of what the director sees.

What school directors are looking for

Director Jessica Harms, writing on the Educational Theatre Association’s blog, gives auditioners a short list: find out what’s expected and come prepared and on time, read the script beforehand, take risks, and listen to the director’s suggestions and follow them as closely as you can.

She also offers a line worth remembering when the cast list goes up: “Casting a show is like a puzzle.” Each student fills a particular slot, and the director is thinking about how actors will work together, not only who read best. She notes that seniority doesn’t decide it either: casting is about fit for the role, not years in the program.

Put those together and the bar for a school audition is clearer than it looks. The director wants to see someone who:

• Knows the story and the characters before walking in.
• Makes a clear choice about what the character wants, even on a first read.
• Can change that choice quickly when asked.

None of those require experience. A student who has never been in a play can show every one of them. Two more things are worth adding from experience: speak up so every word is clear, and be someone the cast would enjoy rehearsing with.

Read the whole play first

This is one of the biggest edges you can give yourself. Hishon says students are strongly encouraged to read the full play before a cold reading audition, and suggests directors ask about the story and characters during the audition to see who did.

If the script is available from the drama teacher or the library, read it twice. The first time, just read for the story. The second time, keep a pencil handy and jot down a few notes about each character you might read for: what they want, who they’re in conflict with, and how they change.

If the show is a classic, it may already be in our library of public-domain plays, where you can see line counts for each role and the scenes each character is in. That’s a quick way to spot which parts are leads and which scenes the director might pull for auditions.

Get good at reading a scene cold

Cold reading feels like a talent some people just have. It isn’t. Hishon calls it a skill that can be practiced and developed in the drama classroom, and her classroom method is simple: students pair up with a new partner and a new scene each time.

Here’s a short exchange to try. It’s the moment in A Midsummer Night’s Dream where a group of workmen are handed their parts for an amateur play, which makes it a fitting warm-up:

QUINCE: Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

BOTTOM: Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.

QUINCE: You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.

BOTTOM: What is Pyramus—a lover, or a tyrant?

QUINCE: A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love.

BOTTOM: That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. …

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene 2 (Project Gutenberg)

Give yourself one minute with it, the way you would in an audition. Then use that minute for three things, in this order:

• Decide what your character wants. Even in these few lines, Bottom wants his part named right now, and in the full scene he wants every part he hears about.
• Find the turn. Quince’s answer, A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love, is the moment Bottom finds out what he’s playing, and his last line is his reaction.
• Look up from the page on your own lines, and keep listening while your partner reads theirs.

You don’t need to sound polished. You need to sound like Bottom wants something. A clear, slightly too big choice beats a careful, flat one, because the director can always ask you to bring it down.

Practice with scenes you’ve never seen

The trick is to keep the material new. Pull a scene at random from a play you haven’t read, give yourself a minute, and read it aloud. If you don’t have a partner, our free run lines online tool has a handful of classic scenes it reads with you, waiting for your line, no account needed.

Be ready to do it again, differently

At some point the director may say, “Great. Now try it as if you’re furious,” or “This time, you’re trying to impress her.” This isn’t a sign you did it wrong. Hishon points out that teachers can ask for different readings of the same lines, so expect to be given a new direction to try. Following it is exactly what Harms means by listening to the director’s suggestions.

Practice this at home. Read the Bottom exchange once as if he’s thrilled, once as if he’s suspicious he’s been given a bad part, and once as if he’s showing off to the others. Notice that the words don’t change. Only what he wants from Quince does.

A student who memorized one fixed way of saying the lines can get stuck here. That’s why, even for a prepared monologue, it helps to rehearse it more than one way. If you need a piece, our monologue library has comedic and dramatic speeches to browse, and our guide on how to memorize a monologue shows how to learn one by its thoughts so the delivery stays open.

A week-before plan

Here’s a simple way to use the week between the sign-up sheet and the audition:

• Seven days out: Read the audition notice again and write down anything you don’t understand. Ask the director that day. If you need a monologue or song, choose it now and start learning it.
• Six days out: Read the whole play once, just for the story.
• Five days out: Read it again with a pencil, noting what each character you’d like to play wants.
• Four and three days out: Cold-read one new scene a day out loud, with a friend or on your own.
• Two days out: If you need a monologue or song, run it three ways: as written, bigger, and quieter.
• The day before: Lay out your clothes, eat normally, and stop rehearsing by early evening.

Some directors release audition sides ahead of time, and then it’s no longer a cold read: you can prepare. Upload your sides to Offbook, choose your role, and realistic voices read the other lines out loud and wait for yours. Run the scene a few times with the page in front of you, then hide your lines and see how much you’ve kept. You may not need to be off book, but knowing the scene well lets you look up and listen.

For a memorized monologue, our free first-letter memorizer turns your lines into first-letter cues, which is a quick way to test yourself on the bus.

On the day: nerves, clothes and the room

Harms gives clear advice on clothes: no costumes and nothing that restricts movement, and comfortable shoes rather than flip-flops or heels. Dress like you’re going to an interview where you might have to move. If there’s a dance call, wear shoes you can actually dance in. Our guide on what to wear to an audition has more.

Then there are the nerves. The usual advice is to calm down, but in one study, telling yourself you’re excited worked better. In Alison Wood Brooks’s karaoke experiment, participants told to say they felt excited before singing scored about 80% on average, while those told to say they felt anxious scored about 53%, according to the American Psychological Association’s summary. Brooks’s point is that anxiety and excitement are both high-energy states, so it may be easier to relabel one as the other than to try to calm down.

So when you’re waiting outside the room, try saying it out loud, quietly: I’m excited. It feels silly. Do it anyway.

In the room, say your name clearly, listen to any instructions, and if you lose your place, find it and keep going. A calm recovery shows the director exactly what they’d want from you in a performance.

Callbacks and the cast list

A callback means the director wants to see you again. The San Diego Junior Theatre audition guide puts it simply: at a callback the director may ask you to sing something from the show, dance, or see you next to another actor, and a callback isn’t a guarantee of a role.

When the cast list goes up, it may not say what you hoped. The same guide says not being cast in no way means you’re not talented; it means there wasn’t the right part for you in this show. Harms suggests two good next steps: join the crew, and ask the director for feedback. In her program, students wait a week and then make an appointment. Our guide on dealing with audition rejection has more on handling the wait and the result.

Questions actors ask

Do I need a monologue for a school play audition?

Only if the audition notice asks for one. Many school auditions use cold readings from the play instead. If you’re not sure, ask the director well before audition day.

What if I’m a slow reader?

Practice cold reading every day for a week; it gets faster with repetition. If reading aloud without warning is a real struggle for you, talk to the director privately ahead of time. Hishon suggests teachers may share cold reading material ahead of time with students who find reading aloud hard.

Can I audition if I’ve never been in a play?

Yes. Harms notes that casting is about fit for the role, not years in the program. Coming prepared, reading the play, and taking direction well matter more than a list of past roles.

Should I only audition for the lead?

Say you’re open to any role unless you truly wouldn’t accept a smaller part. Directors are fitting a puzzle together, and a student who says yes to any role is easier to cast.