Photo Credit: Randy Le’Moine via cc
Casting Directors auditioning actors for Musical Theatre often hear the same songs over and over again. Are they bored of those songs? Sometimes. However these songs are often sung time and time again at castings because they are great to show off acting and vocal skills and they become the perfect musical theatre audition song.
With the internet it has become so much easier for people to get access to scores through sheet music download sites and also naughty bootleg sharing sites. Forums are allowing people to share hot tips and new favourites and Youtube makes searching for audition material much easier. It can be wise to try and find something new, something people are going to be surprised with, but often the favourites are the best. The casting director finds it easy to quickly compare you with others and the accompanist will know how to play the song!
The following are popular audition songs because they work for people, they are story songs, they are able to stand on their own and allow you to show off your singing to its best but also, which is so important and often overlooked when auditioning for musical theatre, these songs allow you to show off your acting skills too.
Five Audition Songs for Men (with videos):
Here is a list of Five Popular Audition Songs for Men.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon
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Buddy’s Blues (click to view video)
Follies
A theatre is closing and a reunion is held to honor the Follies shows that once performed there. All of the showgirls return to the theatre where they had once performed as young woman.The show focuses on two couples, Buddy & Sally and Ben & Phyliss. Both couples are very unhappy in their marriages. At the end of the show the confusions, anger and madness become too much and a fantasy ‘Loveland’ sequence happens and we get to see the real and emotional lives of the couples in a kind of musical breakdown!Buddy, a travelling salesman, has been having an affair on the road. His ‘Loveland’ song is ‘Buddys Blues’ performed in a vaudevillian style with an imaginary Sally and his girlfriend Margie. It is a real comic tour-de-force but also needs the real and emotional breakdown which makes the soul of the song so heartfelt. -
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Live Alone and Like It (click to view video)
Dick Tracy
Warren Beatty’s 1990 movie Dick Tracy, probably became more famous because of the presence of Madonna in it than anything else. It is worth revisiting, it is a quirky beautiful movie and has some great Sondheim songs throughout.Live Alone and Like It is sung by the character of Breathless Mahoney (Madonna) and is used a background music during the film.The song is a celebration of the single life and works sung by both female and male voices. You can build in a backstory to this song and either sing it as a carefree ‘I’m happy with this single life’ attitude –Or you could sing it more uncertain style, like the singer is trying to persuade himself that he is happy with the single life (just like in this video!) -
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Purpose (click to view video)
Avenue Q
Avenue Q is an hilarious musical which has puppets alongside actors. If you went looking for Sesame Street and got lost and ended up in the wrong neighbourhood you might just find yourself in Avenue Q!The song Purpose comes early in Act One and is sung by lead character Princeton. Recently graduated he is keen to find a purpose in life.Like Corner of the Sky from Pippin, the song is typical of dreamer songs and is great for auditions as it has plenty of character and comedy and story in its lyrics.Be careful to keep the emotion under control and not be too ‘wide-eyed and jazz-hands’ when singing it. Try to keep grounded and find the truth in the song to really show some acting ability. -
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Guido’s Song (click to view video)
Nine
Nine is a musical based on the Federico Fellini film 8 1/2. It tells the story of film director Guido Contini who is having a midlife crisis as his 40th birthday approaches. The musical has found recent fame as a movie starring Daniel Day Lewis.Guido’s Song comes early on in the show and is when we first see Guido’s crisis as his interior world starts to become indistinguishable from the real objective world.The song is only to be tackled by the brave baritone as it is a bit of a masterpiece, if you trust yourself and your accompaniest then you will have a lot of fun with it. -
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Nothing In Common (click to view video)
Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes
This is one of my favourite songs by Jason Robert Brown. It is a beautiful song about the relationship between brothers, it hits home for me being the acting-geek of a family of sporty brothers!Jason write this for his brothers wedding where he was asked to deliver a toast but decided to do it with a song. If it connects with you like it did with me then it will be a lovely number to deliver at audition, full of emotion and telling a real story about differences and how they come to mean nothing when a relationship is so strong. -
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