You're Always Auditioning

An email arrives in your inbox, one you've been awaiting for weeks.  The subject line reads something vague about casting.  You open it up and find the complete cast list of the show you auditioned for earlier in the month.  Your name is not mentioned.
Why?  You KILLED that audition.  Your reading was spot-on, you had it memorized, and you took direction well.  Everything the director asked you to do you did.  And you have the perfect look for at least three roles in that play.
Was there anything more you could have done to get that part?  Maybe.  It depends if you've really taken this concept to heart: You're Always Auditioning.
Perhaps your behavior, your acting, your look, and everything else were perfect on that day, but any interaction with any theatre person before that may have affected your casting.

I just finished a summer of teaching 2nd-to-5th graders at the Alliance Theatre and was reminded of this simple truth.  On the first day of every camp we'd play a number of games, then go into an audition to cast our show to be performed at the end of the week.  The games were fun and primarily meant as an icebreaker, but the truth was, those games were just as big a part of the audition as the cold readings.  Some kids didn't pay attention to the directions for playing the game.  Some tended to argue or back-talk.  Some showed a mean streak.  Those kids didn't get the meaty roles.  One girl, while waiting to audition, kept talking while others were auditioning.  At one point she knocked over the chair her feet were propped on while another actor was mid-audition.  That girl didn't get much to do on stage.

But it's not just when you're in an audition setting.  Maybe you did something in the last show you were in that rubbed someone the wrong way, and that someone knows casting directors.  Maybe your reputation for being late, or not learning your lines on time, precedes you.  Maybe you were out to dinner with some friends and your waiter recognized you, thought you treated him poorly, and it turns out he's stage managing the show.

It's a lot of pressure to be on your best professional behavior at all times, and maybe that's not a good way to live your life.  Fine.  It's impossible to please everyone anyway.  It's not necessarily fair.  But one bad experience is all it takes for someone to have a negative opinion of you.  And in the theatre world, we all know each other.  You're always auditioning.