by Rob Decina
My favorite part of Rob Decina's book is his simple, rational advice for actors and their attitudes about auditions. "As actors," he writes, "you must accept the fact that you are not going to book the job that you are auditioning for." Contrary to how it may sound, Decina is not suggesting a defeatist approach; rather, he argues that an actor's attention ought not be on something so statistically difficult and out of his or her control. Instead, actors should take the pressure of booking off their shoulders and thus regain their power. If an audition is not about booking, it is about the audition experience itself. Each audition, he asserts, "is one step in a long line of steps needed for success." Furthermore, "If you believe that the audition is merely an opportunity to display your potential as an actor…then your expectation will be met and your immediate goals filled."
This philosophy is a gift for actors struggling to make sense of the seemingly ongoing cycle of auditions and rejection. An Emmy-nominated casting director for the soap opera Guiding Light, Decina offers practical advice on the television audition, including the first read, callback, and screen test; how to mark your sides; and what to do in the audition room. Decina's techniques relate mainly to the daytime television audition, although many are universally applicable.
He declares right at the beginning that he is not an acting teacher, and he urges readers to train in the craft before using his methods. This is astute advice: It's next to impossible to learn acting from a book, and Decina occasionally makes general statements that could be confusing to less-experienced readers. In Chapter 24, for example, he writes, "In any sentence of dialogue, you must give equal emphasis to all the words of a sentence, and not indicate that any one word is the most important." His idea makes sense if one gets the meaning behind the literal words, but it could backfire on greener performers who might believe a monotone, one-note approach is appropriate.
Allworth Press, 2004, $19.95
Reviewed by Jackie Apodaca