Jack and the beanstalk audition process

The whole process began two weeks before the actual audition day. As a class, we read through the script and we all had a chance to have a go at reading different characters to get a feel for what part we would like to audition for. My first interest was the part of 'Simple Simon' ; Jacks brother. Then I was interested in the part of Jack, and also had a slight interest for the part of the princess. The main reason why I chose these three was because they were all different from each other and this made it more interesting to audition for them.

I started off by watching a version of the 'Jack and the Beanstalk' pantomime on 'YouTube' that was on television a few years ago. On this version from 1998 Jack was an only child, so I focused more on the roles of Jack and the princess. I discovered that Jack played rather child-like, slightly confused, and a naturally funny character, who was quite irritating. The princess was overly nice, girly, and very sweet. In this version, Neil Morrissey played Jack, and Denise Van Outen played the princess.

I then began to search up about pantomimes, and found out that pantomime (panto), is a type of musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. Panto is mainly for adults because of the jokes that are said, children still attend pantomimes also.

I had roughly ten days to prepare for my audition. The technique I used to learn my lines, was to read through them a couple times and then try to say the line out loud. I would then check afterwards if the words that I said were the same as the ones in the script. I also recorded myself to listen what I sounded like afterwards. Two of the characters I was auditioning for were boys, so I had to work on leaving my feminine voice behind and working on a more bulkier voice. After feeling comfortable with my lines, I started to use different ways to act out the character.

For 'the princess', the pitch of my voice was quite high, to come across quite girly, and flirty. I felt that if I played the princess as a flirty character, it could also come across quite funny. My body language included me playing with/twirling my hair, and swaying my body as I was standing. I had an other idea to make the princess come across as annoying and dumb, but as I kept trying to portray that as I practiced, it just would not work.

For 'Simple Simon', I firstly had an idea about being very cheerful. This is because the character of 'Simple Simon' was the main focus for the children in the audience, so I felt that by being cheerful it would be more exciting for the children. For my audition I performed the monologue for when he first appears and introduces himself. I chose this part of the script because I felt that there was so many opportunities to use different tones and pitches of voice and body language. My second idea was for his character to be annoying/irritating, I eventually decided not to do this as I felt that if 'Simple Simon' was annoying and irritating, it may not have the same effect on the children's reaction as being cheerful so I stuck to the idea of being Cheerful. By portraying his character this way, I moved a lot while speaking, using a lot of arm and hand gestures such as waving when he first comes on and says 'hiya kids', so I was able to use a large variation of body language.

For 'Jack', I honestly could not decide on how to play his character. So I started doing a spider diagram on three different people who have played Jack in the past. Two of which are pantomimes, and one is a film from 2009.

I watched this interview of Ray Quinn's performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz1v59xq5Kc

And watched this pantomime and particularly took too this part of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aSvDV7pHe4

Eventually I chose to play Jack as a very happy minded, positive male. This way he would come across brave and cheerful.

When audition day came, of course I was nervous. It was normal to be, I auditioned with a friend who was auditioning for the princess and done a scene which obviously involved two characters, this was my audition for Jack. At the end of my audition, I was told to do my audition for Jack again but with someone else, my first reaction was that I had very badly messed up but I just kept going. After a while, I did it again and was told it was much better that time. I then, decided to do my audition for 'Simple Simon' whilst I was up there, I felt more confident with myself and performed it to the best I could. I was stopped half way through which worried me slightly but I took it on the chin. I never got the chance to audition for the princess but I did not really mind.

The day after the auditions I found out my part, I was written as the part of 'Jack Trott'. I was speechless yet so thankful at the same time. I was and still am so proud of everyone. I had played boy parts in the past but not one like Jack.