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 title to view the video
Click on image to buy from Amazon
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If I Have To Live Alone (click to view video)
The Bakers Wife
The Baker’s Wife is a Stephen Schwartz musical which has never had a succesful West End or Broadway run, yet remains hugely popular amongst musical theatre afficianados.The story revolves around a small Parisian town which is enamoured by bread produced by the newly arrived middle aged baker and his beautiful young wife. The wife has an affair with a handsome gigolo and the baker loses his will to bake.Amiable the Baker has had to admit to himself and the townsfolk that his wife Genevieve has run off and left him. He sings If I Have To Live Alone, as he decides that he will live alone with dignity.The song is a lovely piece for any actor, it is the story of a broken man rebuilding his life. The character really goes on a journey and it is a gem for a baritone to sing at an audition. -
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Being Alive (click to view video)
Company
This is one of those songs which is an audition standard, but rightly so. I think it is a perfect audition piece, a real journey of a song and a gift for any actor.Company is a Sondheim show dealing with relationships. The plot centres on Bobby, a single guy who is a commitment-phobe.Being Alive comes at the end of the show, Bobby has looked at his life and the lives of his married friends, he had thought that by marrying you would just find yourself with someone to smother you and make you feel things you don’t want to feel, but through the song he realises that only by being with someone else will he be able to find someone to help, hurt, hinder and love, someone else to help him face the challenges of Being Alive.My advice with this song is to work on it as a monologue first, find the drama, find the story find the moments of change and choice. The work on the musicality of it. Yes it has its huge vocal moments but in my mind the truth and depth is there to be played in the less showy moments. This is a song which they will have heard before, but if you can really truly act your way through it and find the truth, yours will be the performance they remember. -
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Luck Be A Lady (click to view video)
Guys and Dolls
‘Luck Be a Lady’ is a song which is now better known as a stand alone song rather than being a song from a show. The song is from the point of view of Sky Masterson, a gambler, who hopes that he will win a bet – the outcome of which decides whether or not he will save his relationship with the girl of his dreams.It has become a signature song of Frank Sinatra’s and a ‘Rat Pack’ classic.The song was sung by Marlon Brando in the 1955 film version of Guys and Dolls and has been recorded by all manner of artists from Dee Snyder to Chrissie Hynde to Barbra Streisand!The song was named #42 in the American Film Institutes top 100 movie songs. -
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Everybody says Don’t (click to view video)
Anyone Can Whistle
Anyone Can Whistle is set in an imaginary town which has gone bankrupt. The only place which is doing well is the local sanitorium, known as ‘The Cookie Jar’.This song comes at the end of Act Two, the ‘Cookies’ have escaped and are hiding amongst the townspeople, but no one can tell who is mad and who is sane. Fay Apple a young nurse with the help of Hapgood, one of the Cookies, decide to tear up the inmates records and let them be free.The song is sung by Hapgood as the freed ‘Cookies’ dance. It is a delightful song full of careless optimism, Hapgood is an ‘idealist’ and this delight for life and opportunity shines through in this song. -
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Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (click to view video)
Les Miserables
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables is Marius’s big solo from Les Miserables – it occurs in Act Two after the battle. Sitting on his own in the cafe he is the last of his friends to survive and sings of regret as he reminisces the loss of his friends at the barricade.This song again did not feature in the original French version of this Musical theatre masterpiece, some of the tune the same as ‘The Bishop of Digne’The song is pretty heartbreaking and needs a huge amount of emotion behind it. I think this version from the film is particularly strong as it is so underplayed. -
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