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When choosing an audition song to sing at a musical theatre audition it is vital that you not only choose a song from your range but you also seriously consider your own acting range and the type of character you are auditioning for. So often I hear tales of someone auditioning to play something like Maria from the Sound of Music with a sexy sassy song from Rent (well thats an extreme example but you get my drift!)
This list of songs are all very character and story driven so choose wisely.
It is vital that when auditioning for a part in a musical you are showing off your acting ability just as much as your singing. Directors love working with actors, with actor-singers, if they just wanted a cast of singers then they would go with classically trained singers who have dedicated years to perfecting a classical sound which will be faithful to the notes on the staves and bring no character to the song.
You can bring your character and acting to your singing – don’t leave it at home!
Mezzo-Soprano Songs for Auditions
I always recommend you approach any audition song as a monologue first. Try learning it as a speech and acting it without music first. Get inside the character and situation which is driving the song before you approach the singing of it. I really believe this method gives you a tremendous head start when you begin putting the words to music.
We would love to know what your favourite mezzo-soprano song for auditioning is, let us know via Twitter @actorhub.
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We would love to know what your favourite mezzo-soprano song for auditioning is, let us know via Twitter @actorhub.
Click on title to view the video
Click on image to buy from Amazon
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Don’t Wanna Be Here (click to view video)
Ordinary Days
This great song is taken from the musical Ordinary Days by writer and composer Adam Gwon.When Deb loses her most precious possession–the notes to her graduate thesis–she unwittingly starts a chain of events that turns the ordinary days of four New Yorkers into something extraordinary. Told through a series of intricately connected songs and vignettes, Ordinary Days is an original musical about growing up and enjoying the view.A wonderful song which is full of quirky character, lots of funny lines and a really nice storyline to follow. This song is pretty similar in tone and feel to ‘I Can Do Better Than That’ from Jason Robert Brown’s ‘The Last Five Years’.This song is a perfect choice is you are looking for something which allows you to inject your own personality in to your singing. The stroy of the song about wanting to escape from a hun-drum life is one everyone can relate to and also has a slight wink to the whole audition process.“I finally got a job at some hum-drum office – Like everyone right out of school does – I sat there at my cubicle every day – Sending faxes, and that?s what my life was” -
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There Won’t Be Trumpets (click to view video)
Anyone Can WhistleAnyone Can Whistle is set in an imaginary town which has gone bankrupt. The only place which is doing well is the local sanatorium, known as ‘The Cookie Jar’.The town’s council, in the hope of the tourist dollars it will bring to the town, declare a rock with a spring of water coming from it to be a holy miracle – capable of curing the ill. Fay Apple, a young sceptical nurse doesn’t believe in miracles and has brought all 49 of her inmates from the Cookie Jar to the spring to see its holy powers for herself.The inmates escape and Fay goes into hiding and hopes for a miracle herself, a hero who will deliver the town from its madness.“Those smug little men with their smug little schemes They forgot one thing: The play isn’t over by a long shot yet!” -
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How To Return Home (click to view video)
Tales From The Bad Years
This beautiful song is taken from the musical Tales From The Bad Years by contemporary musical theatre writers Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk.The show is about a group of acquaintances and strangers who are entering their twenties with great expectations. Over the show they connect, meet, argue, fall in love and collide with each other until they start to grow up and realise that the bad years make the best stories.The song is about the mixed emotions felt when you have to return to your family home after you feel you have ‘failed’. This is surely a feeling that we have all experienced at some point in our lives.The song can be powered out and you can choose to give it some real belt moments, or you could keep all the emotions controlled and play it much smaller and really try to internalise the emotional content and give a more ‘real’ performance than you often see in musical theatre.“The house is pulsing with an alien heartbeat, Was it always here but you never listened?
It’s calling you to be the girl that you were way back then… again.” -
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Somewhere Thats Green (click to view video)
Little Shop Of Horrors
This seems to be one of the most popular audition songs for Pantomime. From the Menken and Ashman B Movie musical about a man eating plant!Audrey the ‘pretty blonde with a fashion sense that leans towards the tacky’ whose sadistic dentist boyfriend beats her is secretly in love with her timid co-worker Seymour and dreams of their dream 1950s life together, complete with plastic on the furniture and frozen dinners.This has all the elements of a great audition song, it also can be played completely straight or for laughs. It is a classic ‘I Wish’ or ‘Dreaming’ song, and only narrowly beat ‘Part of Your World’ from The Little Mermaid to make the list. -
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Dear Daddy (click to view video)
W2ML (Welcome to my Life)‘Dear Daddy’ is a terrific song from the musical W2ML by Bobby Cronin, which is wonderful for auditions.The show is set at a Wilderness Intervention Program and tells the story of Cody Gilmore a troubled 17 year old’s poignant and emotional journey as he battles with his demons.Lily a 17 year old NYC girl has been sent to the intervention program because she has been hiding her pain in drugs, sex, cyber-bullying and beinga typical ‘mean-girl’. She has been lying to everyone about how her Dad is a big-wig in the TV industry.When the teens are tasked with writing a letter to someone who has wronged them she sits alone under a trap lit by the fire in the rain and admits to herself that she is in pain and that her father is actually dead.The song is soft, emotional and full of hurt and realisation – there is a tonnes of character and story behind the song which you can use to help you play the song. Keep it real.“I can still hear your voice – It plays over and over inside my head – Now I have to make the choice
To say “No more denying that you are dead.” ” -
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A Cock Eyed Optimist (click to view video)
South Pacific
South Pacific is a musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II it premiered in 1949 on Broadway, and there is a much loved 1958 film.The musical is set on a South Pacific island during World War II. Nellie Forbush, a nurse for the US Navy has fallen in love with Emile a French plantation owner who she has only known briefly. Everyone is worried about the outcome of the war but Nellie tells Emile that she believes everything will be alright with this song.A sweet song which lets you play with the upbeat bubbly character of Nellie. The sentiment of the song is that she is keeping hope when no-one else does, and that is an emotion which every actor should be able to empathise with. -
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Mr. Hopalong Heartbreak (click to view video)
Urban Cowboy
Mr Hopalong Heartbreak is taken from the Jason Robert Brown musical Urban Cowboy. “It’s the story of Bud, a new breed of cowboy who’s turnin’ heads and lookin’ for love in the biggest honkeytonk in the world. But can he raise the roof, get the girl and ride the bull, all before last call?”The song is sung by Sissy when she has decided to get out of her small town life and her small town relationship. Its a lovely survivor’s song, and you can also showcase some humour in it. -
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Fly Fly Away (click to view video)
Catch Me If you Can
Catch Me If You Can the musical played in Broadway in 2011.The story is the same as the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, it tells the story of con-man Frank Abagnale Jnr in the 1960sThis song is sung by Brenda, a nurse who has won Frank’s heart when he is on the run and posing as a Doctor. Frank has proposed to Brenda and told her the truth about himself and all the lies. He promises to return to her after he has escaped the FBI agent who has been trying to catch him for years.Brenda sings this to the FBI agent telling him how she feels about Frank and how she will never reveal where he has run to.This is a beautiful song and shows off character, storytelling, emotion and vocal range. Perfect for auditions.“Men who you call real were really fakes who left me nothing – But this man you call a fake gave me something real” -
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When She Loved Me (click to view video)
Toy Story 2
The ‘Toy Story’ movies are complete favourites of mine and they are movies which really touch adults hearts and emotions. Perhaps the most beautiful moment of Toy Story 2 is this heartbreaking song by Randy Newman.The song is sung by Jessie the Cow Girl toy who sings about how she was once loved but is eventually forgotten by her owner Emily.Although the song is sung by a Toy about her owner growing old and losing interest in her and eventually throwing her out as rubbish, the emotions in the song are completely human and ring true about any relationship breaking down and ending.If you sing the song with complete honesty and really try and connect with those feelings of loss and lonliness you will really connect with the hearts of any audition panel.“So the years went by
I stayed the same
But she began to drift away
I was left alone
Still I waited for the day
When she’d say I will always love you” -
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Dreams To Dream (click to view video)
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is a 1991 sequel to An American Tail – the films tell the story of a family of Jewish-Russian mice who emigrate to the Wild West.This song is sung by Tanya, sister to the film’s hero Fievel, who dreams of being a singing star. She sings this song as she daydreams in an under construction saloon. It is also heard over the end credits sung by Linda Rondstadt.Dreams to Dream is based on a melody heard in the first movie An American Tail. James Horner went on to write the Titanic mega-hit lovesong “My Heart Will Go On”.The song is all about following your dreams and having faith that if you believe them then your dreams can come true. Perfect for an audition!“There is a star
Waiting to guide us
Shining inside us
When we close our eyes” -
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