Me neither.

Because there is no such thing as the National Broadway Auditions.  But there should be.  I mean, can you imagine?  A giant event in major cities across the country where all the super talented folks from that locale could get a minute in front of a Broadway Casting director?  Yeah, it’s a bit American Idol . . . but it worked for that show, didn’t it?  Ever see Kelly Clarkson’s American Idol audition from Dallas, Texas?

Here are three reasons why I’d love to see a National Broadway Audition:

1. To Save $

In the past month, I’ve been in meetings on three different shows who were concerned they wouldn’t find the unique talent they were looking for in New York City, so each one of these shows was planning on doing a mini-tour of some of the bigger talent hubs in our country separately.  Forever the guy who is looking to cut costs in our exceedingly more expensive industry, I couldn’t help but wonder if these shows and their respective casting directors, couldn’t team up and consolidate their audition process.  (The summer stock companies have been doing these types of auditions for years to save money and time  . . . the NETCs, the SETCs, etc.)

2. To Market Broadway

I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about how auditions are one of the best, and earliest forms of marketing a show can do.  But mamma mia, can you imagine the press that would be generated if Broadway went all over the country looking for new talent?  And then imagine the press if a show actually found someone from a small town in middle America and gave them a shot at stardom?  And those are just the press opportunities.  Imagine the number of names and email addresses our industry could collect . . . and Facebook likes and blah, blah, blah.  It’d be a marketing bonanza.  Why?  Because both sides win . . . the individuals auditioning would love the opportunity to audition for a Broadway show and Broadway shows need the talent.  It’s the  purest form of marketing there is.

3. To Find More Diverse Performers

I’m happy to report that there is a major effort underway to diversify our casts (as well as our staffs).  But a lot of the work done in this regard is about looking at who is in front of us.  If we want to increase the number of opportunities for people from all walks of life, then we may need to go to where they are, rather than just wait for them to come to us.  Because just waiting for who comes into our audition room is what got us to where we are now.  By having a National Broadway Audition, we’d be making sure everyone got their shot.

The success of recent Broadway events like BroadwayCon demonstrate the collective power of bringing our community together.  Auditions are the next step . . . ball change.

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