After spending a couple hours in annoying LA traffic and at auditions, I arrived at my cold reading class with actress/teacher/director Amy Lyndon. Amy's a real no-nonsense lady and I really appreciate that about her. It's a rare quality out here in LA-LA land that this New England yankee really likes.

As part of the class, Amy talked about the need to have a consistent preparation routine -- something that helps you clear your head of the muck of your everyday life, puts you in a good place to create, and helps you from becoming distracted by other people. It got me thinking about some of the rituals I like to do before I audition or perform.

One of the things I like most is to listen to music, particularly music that has the same sort of feel as the character I'm going to be playing. For better or worse, I've always been influenced quite a bit by the feelings in music, movies and other media. The genre doesn't matter. Artists' performances can take along me on a very emotional ride and listening to a good performance before an audition can really influence me a lot.

I started this preparation practice years ago when I was playing Bob Cratchit in a production of Scrooge: the Musical! and had to perform a particularly emotional scene, mourning the loss of a son. The emotions of the scene weren't really a problem. The challenge was that it was a large cast of people in the show and we were crammed into a really small area backstage. There was also a big happy scene going on just before my emotional one. With all of the chatter, music and bodies, it was really difficult to find any kind of privacy.

As a result, I came up with the idea of creating a CD of music tracks that I knew moved me emotionally. With my portable CD player in hand, I found a somewhat private backstage area, listened to the prior to my scene and was able to maintain my emotional concentration. Music helped me a lot in that case and continues to do so.
TREVOR KIMBALL AUDITION ACTING ACTOR AGENT CLIENT HOLLYWOOD LOS ANGELES CALLBACK ON AVAIL COMMERCIAL PLAY THEATRE THEATER MUSIC HEADSHOT