Marcus Olson is an assistant professor of theater at Western Illinois University, but is no stranger to the MCT family, having conducted audition workshops at MCT's summer performing arts camps in the past. I wasn't able to spend a great deal of time in his workshops, at least photographing, but what I did hear and see was truly inspiring. His workshop focused primarily on the audition process and helping the students develop techniques to stand out in a field of competitors. He also allowed for a healthy dose of reality, preparing the students for "cattle call" auditions (where groups of actors are weeded out just based on their physical appearance), and education on general expectations for the audition process.
Every interaction with the students exhibited Marcus's desire for the students to succeed. He acknowledged the fact that auditions are incredibly anxiety-provoking, and that as actors, it is incredibly difficulty to both tap into a deep well of emotional experience and portray this to a director/producer, while simultaneously maintaining a thick skin in the face of potential rejection for the part. "It's a simple truth", he told the students, "and you have to learn how to be in both places."
Here Marcus simulated a "cattle call" audition, having the students line up in front of him, asking a few questions of some, and then deciding (in a seemingly arbitrary way) who would be chosen to go on to the next audition phase. At the outset this seemed a simple exercise, but immediately the students began to discuss how their level of anxiety rose, how they began to become extremely self-confident, and how they started to question their abilities based on someone else getting a call-back. Marcus helped the students to understand that for some casting, the "cattle call" method is the only way to begin to narrow the audition field, as there is often not enough time to allow a full audition for everyone who shows up (sometimes there can be thousands). While the explanation helped to understand the process, the students agreed that it didn't make it any easier.
Marcus led the students through an exercise where they had to change aspects of their appearance and their partner had to guess what was changed. It was interesting to watch the progress of this exercise, as the students ran out of "things" to change, and instead had to adopt body positions, facial expressions, and different personas in order to meet the goals of the exercise.
Marcus processes the exercise with the students, discussing how physical characteristics in a character as just as important as costuming...
Jadi shares a laugh during class discussion...
Marcus gave some great suggestions to the students, including keeping notes on everyday things that they see and do in order to study themselves and human behavior more thoroughly...
Kyler works with accompianist, Anne Bashor, before his mock audition...
Eden's mock audition...
Thank you, Marcus, for your hard work and dedication to the Next Step Students. Your wealth of knowledge and experience will be something they carry for years to come.
