How Not to Audition for Divine Comedy

Divine Comedy has recently posted several videos for sketches from the previous year and I got to thinking about things I noticed during tryouts. So, as a reminder to myself and for anyone who might stumble upon this blog who wants to join Divine Comedy, here are a few pitfalls I noticed.

• Don't sing. Chef Gusteau says "anyone can cook." I say "anyone can sing," and because of this, singing does not make you stand out. Besides that, it severely takes away from the amount of laughter the audience can make because the song keeps going and it will not let the laughter grow since the audience needs to hear what happens next. And it's harder to understand singing than speaking anyway. Just don't sing--and especially don't just stand in front of the mike to do it.
• One of the most common bases is the dating story. Unless your entire act is solid and original, don't rely on this.
• Impressions of famous people can be good and hilarious, but not if there are a bajillion people doing Gollum or the Old Spice Guy. If you're not sure if you're going to be one of many doing the same thing, do it early in the night, when it still seems original.
• Stand-up, while often funny, rubs me the wrong way. Except at the beginning of the show and half-time, Divine Comedy rarely acknowledges the audience unless it's breaking the fourth wall for laughs. For auditions, it's probably best to leave the fourth wall alone.
• Mentioning things like how awkward auditions are or how awesome Matt Meese is will not help your cause much, if at all. Leave Divine Comedy alone. And making fun of BYUSA should only be done if it's a solid joke, not because DC makes fun of them all the time.

And the ones I specifically was guilty of:

• Practice in front of people beforehand with all props as you would do in the actual audition. I didn't realize in my audition how much eating would change my performance compared to when I practiced by just miming it. Also, my prop bag was overly full and I broke character trying to look inside for the right prop.
• I only did it because I didn't know how much time I had left, but I did my final joke while people were still laughing. Don't talk while people are laughing.
• Get good stage presence. I don't have it. I'm not sure how to fix this one other than to get more practice in front of crowds.
• Don't make a mess on the stage. Cleaning up later is just distracting.
• I only had a general idea for what to say with each line, not exact wording. One joke in particular wasn't as strong as it could have been since I neglected one optional line that made the situation confusing (I tried to fix it immediately afterward, but I know some people must have remained confused). Unless you know that your ability to improvise will suffer drastically, work with an exact script instead of an outlined script.