I'm going to audition for "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown" in a couple of weeks and I would like some suggestions on what would be a good song to audition with.  It needs to be something for a female with an alto range. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Edited by Showtime - 4/26/10 at 5:21pm

Originally posted by Showtime I'm going to audition for "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown" in a couple of weeks and I would like some suggestions on what would be a good song to audition with.  It needs to be something for a female with an alto range. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Here is an 'Audition song advice' article, which may help?

Edited by JoeMc - 1/17/11 at 12:28am

The link to the web page advise about choosing an audition song is generally very good but I do differ on one point:
There is a big difference between "professional" theater auditions and community theater auditions.

   At professional auditions is is not unusual to get 400 to 500 people audition ( depending on what size city you live in.) At community theaters it's a bit variable but I'd say 50 to 60 people auditioning is more the maximum range.

   At a professional theater they generally DO NOT want to hear a song from the show at the initial audition because then they would hear 40 or 50 people doing the same song which might get very boring.

   At a community theater audition you might have 3 or 4 people do the same song if it was from the show. Not exactly such a big problem. So the director should not have such a big problem.

   If the director of a community theater show DOES have a problem with you doing a song from the show at the initial audition then ,personally, I would think twice about working for that director. The director in a community theater show should be trying to make you feel as comfortable as possible and allow you to perform with the least amount of stress and restraints. If you want to do a song from the show it should not be the directors concern.... they should simply want to hear how you sing and sing your best. My general experience has been that community theater directors who are a bit too "dictatorial" about what to do or not to do at auditions are not going to be that pleasant to work for anyway.

Oh, and by the way, even at professional auditions .... if you get called back for a specific role... 9 times out of 10 you WILL have to sing a song or that specific characters song from the show anyway. They will want to specifically hear how you sing THAT song from THE show.

   Most reasonable community theater directors,in my experience, don't really care if you do a song from the show or not but they will eventually want to hear how you sing from the show. And weather you sing the song at INITIAL auditions or later at callbacks really doesn't make that much difference.

In the final analysis: be comfortable with what you sing and practice a lot.
    

I generally don't sing from the show when I audition - unless it's a show (or a director) that demands it.  (The last time I can recall doing it was an audition for PIPPIN where I sang "No Time At All".)  I have a stack of theatre music that's about 3' high, and I try to find songs that show off my voice and not everyone will be singing - I auditioned for FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL with "Crazy World" from VICTOR/VICTORIA, and I love using the music from NUNSENSE II and FOLLIES. 

That said, when I directed GODSPELL, I did ask that people sing a song from the show - and NOT "Day By Day".