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Musical Theatre Audition Songs – Choices for Mezzo Soprano

Musical Theatre Audition Songs - Choices for Mezzo Soprano_550
Photo Credit: Matt Scott via cc
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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  • Sooner Or Later (click to view video)
    Dick Tracy
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    Sooner or Later comes from the movie Dick Tracy and is one of the songs which Sondheim wrote for Madonna’s character Breathless Mahoney, a seductive and sultry singer from Club Ritz.
    The song oozes sex appeal as Breathless is desperately trying to seduce Dick throughout the movie, however the double meaning of the song refers to Dick Tracy and how he ‘always gets his man’ ie: he always captures the bad guy.
    Reveal your inner vamp and sexy side and play with the double entendre’s and enjoy it!
    “And no one I’ve kissed, babe, ever fights me again. If you’re on my list, it’s just a question of when.”
  • Don’t Wanna Be Here (click to view video)
    Ordinary Days
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    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”
  • When She Loved Me (click to view video)
    Toy Story 2
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    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”
  • If I Loved You (click to view video)
    Carousel
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    The 1945 musical Carousel is famous for the songs ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, ‘June is Bustin Out All Over’, and the beautiful ‘If I Loved You’. The show tells the story of carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He attempts a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes wrong, he is given a chance to make things right.
    This song is first sung in Act One by both Billy and Julie as they talk about what life might be like if they were in love with each other, with neither confessing that they are actually falling in love!
    The reprise in Act Two is the version which is normally used by males for auditions. (Spoiler alert!) At this point Billy has died and returned to Julie and his daughter as an angel to make right his wrongs, he drops a star which Julie picks up and he sings this heartbreaking love song to his widow as she feels his presence.
  • Old Friends (click to view video)
    Merrily We Roll Along
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    One of Sondheim’s few flops ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ has recently been revived to great acclaim thanks to the wonderful Menier Chocolate Factory. The story of the show is told backwards which might be why it originally flopped.
    This song is sung near the beginning of the show, so it comes at the end of the story!?!
    Mary an alcoholic theatre critic meets her old friend’s Charley and Frank at a tv studio where they will be giving an interview.
    The song is a wonderful piece of theatre, and really sums up how it feels when you bump into one of your ‘old friends’.
    “But us old friend what’s to discuss old friend? Here’s to us, Who’s like us? Damn few.”
  • Losing My Mind (click to view video)
    Follies
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    Losing My Mind from Follies is one of those Sondheim songs, like Send In The Clowns, which has flown the coop and made the transition from musical theatre to mainstream.
    Great songwriting which works equally well inside the show and characters but can also work on its own, which makes it a good audition choice (although probably overdone which means you will be compared to many who have gone before)
    The melody is haunting and the song is full of heartbreak and pain in the everyday and commonplace ‘the coffee cup, I think about you’. This song is about hearbreak, loss, desperation and emotional breakdown.
    Do it justice and surrender your heart.
  • How To Return Home (click to view video)
    Tales From The Bad Years
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    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.”
  • Not For the Life of Me (click to view video)
    Thoroughly Modern Millie
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    Not For The Life of Me is from the 2000 stage musical Thoroughly Modern Millie based on the 1967 movie. The story is set in 1922 and tells of a small town girl Millie Dillmount who has come to New York to marry for money instead of love – a thorougly modern approach! She falls in love with the flapper lifetsyle and gets caught up with a white slavery ring in China! The show is very tongue in cheek and a complete pastiche.
    This number opens the show and is sung by Millie as she arrives at NYC train station from Kansas and tears up her return ticket!
    It is a classic ‘I wish’ song and is very popular for auditions for that reason.
  • Goodbye Until Tomorrow (click to view video)
    The Last Five Years
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    The last song in The Last Five Years, and in context is a real heartbreaker as it is sung when Cathy has first met Jamie (but in the back to front show, it actually happens on stage after we have witnessed Jamie telling his lover that he is leaving Cathy. In this song Cathy is ecstatic after her first date with Jamie. She sings goodbye. She proclaims that she has been waiting for Jamie her whole life.
    This should be sung full of excitement and energy and a real zest for life. Full of the butterflies you feel and adrenaline rush when you realise you have just met ‘the one’, the one you are going to spend your life with.
  • Christmas Lullaby (click to view video)
    Songs For a New World
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    A song which is full of deep emotion.
    The song is sung by a young girl who has discovered she is pregnant, from the lyrics I would imagine she is alone in the world. This girl finds grace in her situation, she feels worth for the first time in her life. She is bringing another person into this world, a person who perhaps can make a difference like she could not.
    I would recommend this song is sung with innocence and honesty, no edges no tricks, just sung simply. I also suggest that this could be sung to the unborn child and that way you might tap into the correct emotion.
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