I finally got a chance to watch the second episode of the reality show Legally Blonde: The Musical: The Search for Elle, which airs every Monday night on MTV (thank you, Tivo).
It follows the tale of 10 young women auditioning to fill the lead role in the Broadway musical.
I'm still enjoying the show, although it seems to be trying awfully hard to focus on the competition part of the audition process. The funny thing about auditioning is, you're not really competing against the others who are trying out - it's more of a competition between your abilities and what the judges are looking for. If they see you in the part, then you'll get it - and if they don't, you won't. It doesn't matter what anyone else does - all you can do is give it your best shot and hope you hit the right marks.
In the second episode of the "Elle" series the focus is on acting auditions. The women go through a mini-acting audition, which included a vulgar tongue-twister and a brief scene with another actor. The one who most impressed the acting coach was Bailey (that's her on the left in this photo from MTV), so she and another auditioner (yes, they made her choose one) got to meet Nikki Snelson, one of the stars of the musical.
The next day each auditioner did a longer scene on stage with Nikki, but the judges threw in a curve - they had Nikki deliberately drop a line to see how the hopefuls would react. That's a really dirty trick and it was painful to watch. Those things do happen on the stage, but after enough rehearsal, it's a bit easier to cover for another actor's flub. To put them on the spot in their first reading seemed a bit much - but it is something any actor has to face.
Once the auditions were finished, the bottom three had to face the judges, where they learned why they were chosen for possible elimination. That was interesting, because (as one of the judges pointed out) usually when you don't get cast after an audition you have no idea why you weren't chosen. In this show, the judges explain their choices.
If you want to be surprised, stop reading now, because I'm about to tell you that Cassie O. got eliminated (probably because they only wanted one Cassie on the show). So far, the show continues to be interesting and shines a spotlight on the fun - and incredible stress - brought on by auditioning. So far, so good.
(Oh, and you have several more chances to catch the show - it'll air Wednesday, June 11 at 2:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. and Thursday, June 12 at 6:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on MTV.)
8 comments:
I thought the dirty "trick" they played on the young woman auditioning was stupid and showed the judges very little. Those women learned a few lines quickly (I think) and then had to do a scene with Ms. Snelson. Now if I were auditioning, common sense would tell me that Nikki Snelson knows what she is doing. I mean the woman has played the part for a year and a half now.If I were reading with her I too would be racking my brains to see if I made the mistake. All it did was provide fake drama for television.
Also, I wouldn't have cared which Cassie was booted the other night. The nicer one went, but both were god awful. Actually, the Cassie who got to stay was a far worse actor then the one who was let go.
Denise, I agree. The part of the show I found interesting was the discussion the judges had about the strong and weak points of each candidate. But you're right, the whole "dropped line" bit was just an attempt at injecting some unnecessary drama. The audition process has enough drama on its own - just show us that.
Shouldn't these girls have already learned how to cover by this point in their careers? It seemed as if all of the girls were pretty much thrown through a loop when Snelson dropped a line.
My favorite right now is Bailey. Hopefully she'll stick around for a while.
I still haven't seen the show, probably because I'm at rehearsal, but the only buzz I kept hearing so far was about how no one knew how to cover the dropped line.
Although they may not have gone about it the right way, covering is one of those skills that are essential out on the stage.
We've all made and covered mistakes. So, this for sure was at least an attempt at seeing if the girls could do that.
Thanks for the review Chuck, keep us who are in rehearsals in the loop.
Josh and Stephen, I agree that covering is a vital skill for any actor (and both of you, I'm sure, have had the experience of covering for others), but I still think the audition is a weird place to test for it. And at least one of the auditioners covered pretty well (or as well as can be expected), so they didn't all flub it.
Stephen is, of course, rehearsing "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum," which is just a week away from its first performance. Let us know how it's going, and as always, break a leg!
Covering in a performance is one thing, but covering in an audition where you have every expectation that the person you are reading with is the expert is another.
Fake drama, that's all it was. And it actually really annoyed me. I'm tuning in to learn something. So, what do the creators of the show do? They insult my intelligence by throwing in a prank. Not cool!
Oh and Josh, have you gotten going on your college plans? I'm looking forward to hearing about them.
Actually, I'm in Romeo and Juliet and Anything Goes, but I have stopped over at ARTS and things do seem to be coming together over there with Forum too.
Whoops! Sorry about that! I knew you were in the HOT shows. I blame the heat and humidity... yeah, that's the ticket!
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