An audition notice rarely arrives at a convenient moment. It lands on a Tuesday, the appointment is the following Thursday, and the sides are two pages of dialogue that could be read in ninety seconds. Seven days is not much. It is also, honestly, more than most people use. What follows is a week you can actually keep: a few hours spread across seven days, arranged so that the work on the script, the voice, the body and the diary all get done before you walk into the room.

Days 1 and 2: Read the Script Like a Detective

Read the material twice before you make a single decision about how to play it. The first read is for the story: who is talking, what happens, where does it end. Don't perform in your head. Just follow it. The second read is slower, with a pencil in hand, and it is where most of the real work happens.

Ask the script questions rather than asking yourself how you feel about it. A useful set:

• What does this character want from the other person in this scene, stated as a verb? To corner them, to be forgiven, to get out of the room, to make them laugh.
• What happened in the ten minutes before the scene begins?
• Which line am I most tempted to explain, and why does it need explaining?
• Where does the other character's line change what I'm doing?
• What is said out loud, and what is only thought?

Resist the urge to lock in a mood. "She's devastated" is a result, not a plan, and it leaves you nowhere to go. "She's trying to get him to admit he knew" gives you something to do with every line. If you have the full play, read it — context about the world of the piece is useful. Production history and other people's reviews are not, at least not this week.

Day 3: Voice — Make the Room Hear Your Last Words

More auditions are lost to trailing off than to any question of talent. Read the sides aloud, standing up, and listen for the places where your volume drops: usually the end of a sentence, and almost always the moment you feel uncertain. Mark breath points with a pencil slash so you're not gasping mid-thought.

A five-minute warm-up you can repeat on the day:

1. Shake out the shoulders and jaw, then hum gently for thirty seconds.
2. Run a few tongue twisters slowly, then at speed, over-articulating the consonants.
3. Read the first page at double your normal volume, aimed at the back row of an imaginary theatre.
4. Read it again at half volume, keeping every consonant intact.
5. Read it once more, landing the final word of each line as though placing it on a table.

You are not trying to find a beautiful voice. You are trying to make sure that the person sitting eight metres away can hear the thought arrive.

Day 4: Movement — Get Out of the Chair

A script read sitting down is a document. Standing up, it becomes a scene. Spend twenty minutes on your feet: a spine roll, a walk around the room, some gentle stretches. Then go through the scene and give each beat one physical action — crossing to the window, putting a cup down, turning away — not a sequence of choreography.

Watch out for pacing. Walking up and down to burn off nerves reads on camera as exactly what it is. Try the scene once with as little movement as possible and notice where your body wants to move anyway; that impulse is usually worth keeping. If a stretch or position hurts, stop. If you're working around an injury, get advice from a teacher or a physiotherapist rather than pushing through it.

Day 5: Put It on Its Feet, Then on Camera

Rough out where you'll be and where the reader will be. Two or three marks is plenty; anything more and you'll be thinking about geography instead of the other person. Then record it. Two takes, no more.

Watch the first playback with the sound off. You're looking for tension you didn't intend: raised shoulders, a fixed jaw, hands frozen at your sides. Watch the second with sound on and check one thing only — can you hear and understand every line? Pick a single note for tomorrow. Not five.

Day 6: Logistics, the Boring Part That Saves You

This is the day that separates a calm audition from a rushed one, and it takes less than an hour.

• The address. Check the exact entrance, not just the street. Studios hide in courtyards and above shops.
• The journey. Plan it with a buffer. Aim to arrive in the area twenty minutes early, then wait somewhere else until ten minutes before your slot.
• The bag. Headshot and CV if requested, sides with your lines marked, a pencil, water, a charger.
• The clothes. Something you can move in and that doesn't need adjusting. Avoid anything you'll be tugging at.
• The first line. Know it cold. It is the only line in the scene that has no cue.
• The reader's lines. Be familiar enough with them that an unexpected pause doesn't derail you.
• The slate. Prepare one short, friendly sentence — your name and, if they asked, your agent or where you trained. No speeches.

If the instructions are ambiguous — whether they want prepared material or a cold read, who to ask for on arrival — send one short, polite email and ask. People would rather answer a question than watch you guess.

Day 7: Two Run-Throughs, Then Rest

Do the scene twice, out loud, fully. Then stop. The instinct to keep drilling comes from nerves, not from craft, and by Sunday evening you are more likely to grind in a bad habit than to improve a good one.

Nerves are not a problem to solve; they're a physical event. Breathe out for longer than you breathe in, move your body, and let the adrenaline do what it does. Eat something. Sleep. Whatever you do, don't change your accent or rebuild the character the night before. The choices you made on Monday were made by a clearer head than the one you'll have at midnight.

In the Room, and Afterward

Walk in, say hello, slate if asked, and start. If you're given a direction, do it fully — even if it feels wrong, especially if it feels wrong. Half-committing to an adjustment is the only way to fail at it. When you're done, thank them and go; there is rarely anything useful to add at the door.

Then, on the way home, write one sentence in a notebook about what worked. Not what went badly — one thing that worked. Over a year of auditions, that list becomes a more reliable guide to your own instincts than any single callback.

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