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« on: Sep 25, 2012, 01:09 pm »
I am an AEA monitor, and I see auditioners shoot themselves in the foot all the time by the way they treat the monitors and assistants, and word gets back to the CDs, directors and producers immediately! The worst (or best example) was during the local auditions for the first national tour of WICKED.
It was a huge huge call, but since they were seeing the dancers in big clumps I had asked the CD to have mercy on the long line of nonEqs and had been able to get most of them (future members after all) into the call, at least to be typed in or out after the AEA folks had been seen. Two of the nonEqs, tho, had wandered off before this happened, and were nowhere to be found for a long time. They stuck their heads back in at the very end of the call day, by which time the casting director had cut off seeing any more since they were about to start the agent call and needed a pit stop first.
Despite attempts to calmly sympathize with their predicament and help them look for alternatives, these two kids argued with me vociferously that they had been nearby (they weren't, I had gone hunting for them three times, and my outside voice is amphitheater size). Despite their abusive attitude, I offered to check w the CD's assistant for them, but she also concurred with the CD's cut-off, since he and the MD hadn't had a break.
Then, while the assistant was still watching, the two actors started loudly berating me and threatening me, insisting that their missing this opportunity was my fault, that I was blocking them deliberately for some imagined reason, that this was their big break and they were sure to be cast and I was standing between them and a Broadway job.
The asst took me aside and thanked me, having taken their names (I'd shown her their pic/res when I asked if they could be fit in) and said if they sent headshots to the CD's office while she was there, she'd flag them and make sure they were never not ever hired on her watch because of their attitude and treatment of me. She also kept an eye out as I left, since these two were still actively physically threatening me; this was the only time I didn't feel safe walking to my car after I closed up.
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