Over the weekend, UM performance faculty finished our fourth and final full day of BFA Acting program callbacks. We saw 122 students total, after narrowing the field from around 430 initial video applicants. That’s a lot of students!
It’s difficult to maintain focus seeing so many auditioners, and after a while there’s the danger that they’ll all start to look and sound the same, or that I’ll check out mentally. I don’t want my attention to wander or my audition fatigue to disadvantage anyone. Just as important, I want to make sure that I’m specific in my assessment of each applicant, to try to guard against any implicit bias that I may have.
A couple of years ago, I identified these challenges for myself and asked the question, “What am I paying attention to when I assess a young person’s acting?” That led me to develop a rubric of sorts that helps me focus my attention and standardize my evaluations. I score each rubric item on a three-point scale, and everyone starts with all twos. If someone stands out to me as being particularly strong or weak in any category, I adjust the score accordingly. It’s not perfect, but it does help me objectify something that can be very subjective, and I find that my scores do end up aligning with my subjective perceptions–and those of my colleagues–significantly.
For me, assessing acting boils down to these things:
Physical Ease & Integration: Some actors work through excess physical tension, trying to generate stakes internally rather than through circumstances, objective, and scene partner, and some have obvious alignment or coordination issues that limit their expressive choices; other actors use their bodies expressively, creatively, and with ease and coordination.
Audibility/Intelligibility: Some actors intuitively calibrate their vocal energy and the level of detail in their speech to the size of the venue and the circumstances of their scene; others don’t. This is also a category where I sometimes note an actor’s particularly sensuous and active use of language, or, conversely, particular speech or language challenges that might be beyond my scope of practice (speech differences that could be categorized as disorders).
Active Breath: This term, borrowed from Miller Voice Method, is the most telling part of my evaluation, and often works hand in hand with the other evaluation categories. Specific breath behaviors tell stories about information uptake (listening) and expression (action). If an actor is holding their breath, it tells me that they are planning a future moment or judging a past one, rather than staying present in the scene.
Listening/Evaluation: Is the actor taking in their (imaginary) scene partner? Can I perceive that there is another person there with them? Are they receiving new moment-to-moment information, or is their action predetermined? Is there the possibility of surprise in this performance?
Objective/Action: Is the actor pursuing a need? Are they working to change their scene partner? Do their physical and vocal choices help them toward that end?
Expressivity/Variety: Does the actor employ a variety of tactical choices? Do the pieces they have chosen to present show interesting contrasts? Is the performance evocative or flat?
Adjustment/Interview: Finally, how well does the actor make an adjustment when asked? Can the actor be playful, flexible, spontaneous, or is the performance cemented in place? How does the actor interact with the panel out of character–is this an engaging, professional, collegial person who is excited to be in the room?
By focusing my attention in seven categories, I’ve found that I’m able to maintain focus through long days and stay relatively consistent in my evaluations.
What would you put on your rubric? Is it different from mine? Let me know!