What to expect
For students and performers interested in getting up on the TIC stage, it's important to know what kinds of opportunities exist. Throughout most of the calendar year, we offer the following types of performance opportunities:
Once you've gone through the process of forming an independent ("indie") team with other students and community members, you can start applying for opportunities in the theatre's numerous weekly container shows such as Indie Harold Night, Cage Match & Rotating Tap
Once your indie team has enough performance chops to potentially anchor a full one-hour show, you can participate in our annual selection of weekend shows.
Recent examples include Swing Set, Hunks 4 U, The Peer Revue, etc.
Once you've met certain prerequisites as an individual student or performer, you're eligible to audition for one of our in-house comedy ensembles such as House Harold Teams, the F#*k This, I Quit casting pool, or Churn (aka House Sketch) Teams
This document focuses solely on how in-house auditions work.
Before being allowed to sign up, you must meet the relevant student prerequisites, have a performance experience exemption granted, or be explicitly invited to participate.
Prerequisites vary based on the specific show we're casting for, but for example, to audition for a House Harold Team you must have passed the full Improv Performance Track at TIC, which is where we teach the Harold format as it is typically performed at the theatre.
Anyone who has passed the relevant prerequisite course(s) at TIC will have automatic permission to book an audition.
If you have not passed the relevant courses at TIC, but have extensive relevant prior performance experience, you can request an exemption from the prerequisites. This is typically done by emailing us your comedy CV, and explaining why you believe you're ready to audition.
However, we do not grant many exemptions, and they typically go to performers who have moved to Melbourne from other cities, where they've trained and performed extensively with other similar theatres.
Additionally, our Artistic Committee and Diversity & Inclusion Committee have the ability to invite certain performers to audition before technically meeting the requirements. This is typically done to encourage performers from underrepresented groups to audition, and to include specific newer performers who we feel could be assets for our in-house programs.
Once eligible, auditions can be booked via this Auditions Portal website.
For any preliminary, non-callback audition round, individuals can book themselves in for a time slot of their choice, pending availability.
For callback rounds, the Artistic Committee will book performers into specific time slots.
For in-person auditions, the list of currently booked auditionees in each time slot is shared publicly to help participants anticipate who might be in their audition group.
The specific audition format (i.e. what we'll be testing for) will be listed on the website, and a copy will be emailed to you in your booking confirmation email.
While the formal evaluated portion typically runs for 30 minutes, we ask everyone to arrive 15 minutes early for a warm up which is facilitated by trusted members of the community who volunteer their time.
Once it's time for the formal evaluation, your group will be brought into a room where the evaluation panel will be waiting.
All auditionees and panel members will be given a chance to introduce themselves, and a photo of the audition group will be taken for internal purposes, to help out hours later when we inevitably have discussions like "Who was the person in the green dinosaur shirt?"
Next the auditions coordinator will remind everyone of the specific audition format they've signed up for, and answer any format/policy questions that might arise. From that point, the audition formally begins!
At the conclusion of the audition, the panel will thank everyone for their time and set expectations for when they can expect to hear back from us.
From that point, congratulations, you've auditioned! The rest of the day is yours.
Our audition panels consist of lots of our most experienced performers, teachers and coaches – plus representatives from our Diversity & Inclusion Committee. On occasion we will also invite trusted reps from TIC's past, who you may never have seen before.
At any given audition session we typically have approximately 5–7 panel members in attendance, but for larger multi-day auditions these individuals may rotate in and out from a larger pool.
The complete pool is typically listed on the website ahead of the audition.
Due to the high volume of people participating in the process, it is impossible for us to have in-depth discussions about the merits of each auditionee.
Instead, our audition panel members begin by assigning each participant a numerical score in two areas: technical skill and watchability
Technical skill attempts to gauge how well an individual has ticked the specific boxes of what we've asked them to do with brainy improv theory, while watchability tracks how engaging someone is as a performer – be it through acting skills, a memorable stage presence, or that certain je ne sais quoi
These numbers lead to us being able to get a quick read on who has clearly impressed us on average, and who clearly has not. From that point, we begin by providing opportunities to those individuals at the top of the numerical ranking.
There's inevitably a point as we go down our list, where we'll hit a large clump of auditionees with statistically equivalent numeric scores and not enough spots available for everyone. These "on the fence" folks are the individuals who we tend to discuss in-depth, as we need some way to differentiate between them.
While we do not use a strict quota system, our Diversity & Inclusion Committee frequently uses these "on the fence" discussions as opportunities to weigh in and suggest outcomes that might aid the theatre's long-term diversity goals.
We understand that anxiety can creep in while waiting to hear about outcomes, but we tend to take our time with making and communicating our decisions, so it's best to relax and be patient.
When we are ready to communicate outcomes, we typically reach out to all successful individuals first.
After all positive outcomes have been communicated, we will begin to communicate our regrets to unsuccessful applicants.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any feedback to unsuccessful applicants. We understand and appreciate that this is frustrating to some.
We hope that the overwhelming majority of our casting decisions are made through the front door of formal auditions, but the existence of a slightly less formal back door has proven to be necessary for the theatre's long-term health.
We occasionally have vacancies that open up on our teams and ensembles, outside of audition seasons. For example, a Harold Night vacancy might pop up in August, six months after the previous audition, and six months until the next scheduled one.
Calling a formal audition is an extremely complex, expensive and time-consuming process. As such, the theatre reserves the right to cast small numbers of individuals throughout the year without undertaking a formal auditions process.
This is typically done by theatre management meeting with the people in charge of producing the show or coaching the team, finding out what specific problem(s) they're facing, and then brainstorming a list of specific individuals whose addition is most likely to fix the identified issues.
Every situation is different, and decisions tend to be made based on the immediate needs of the theatre, considered through the lens of our core values.