...And on the way back to my room, I happened to take care of some damage control as it were.
One actor stopped me to ask what had happened during his audition. He was wondering why I didn't keep playing after I gave him his cue note. Well, I explained to him that he had told me to take a pause after I gave the note, which I did. So then I waited... And waited. It turned out he was waiting for me to go on - even though we were supposed to start together - so we just ended up waiting for each other. "Next time, you start and I follow - since that's the only way I know that YOU are going on." -It was one of his first auditions, and he had never really been instructed what to do.
Then I went up to a young actor to see if he was OK. While looking at his music before his group started, I noticed that he had only brought in the vocal line for his song. There was no piano part. And (unfortunately) it was for a song that I was not that familiar with. Normally, I would have had to tell him that he would not be able to audition since he did not bring the required materials, but since I did not want to make a bad situation worse, I simply told him that I would get him started, and that he should just keep singing. I was going to fake an accompaniment - and that he should be prepared to hear some wrong/different notes and harmonies. But, again, it was HIS audition, so as long as he kept singing strongly... Well, he did not sing strongly, he ended up "singing like a 12-year old" (his words). And, alas, he did not get that many callbacks - if any - since he was already at the bar. But he did appreciate me checking in on him, and apologized for not being properly prepared. Lesson learned.
