Simon Dunmore - Teacher of Acting
I have taught acting in a number of places (click here if you'd like a list) and also teach privately.
Audition Speeches may be very well established as a method for actors to demonstrate their talent, but I am constantly surprised at how few people make a real impact with them. This is generally through poor choice of material and/or bad staging. It is true that you will probably only be asked to do them for drama school and in your first few years in the business and virtually never for television and film. (I have come across several examples of audition speeches being asked for in television interviews - one actor was told, 'I just want to see some more.') But a surprising number of theatre directors still ask for them from experienced actors as well as, or even instead of, a reading (hopefully you will be warned of this beforehand).
Many actors argue that doing an audition speech is a desperately artificial way of having their worth assessed. I would tend to agree but, however much you may hate them, you will periodically have to do them. Of course it's an artificial situation, but isn't the theatre about making artifice seem real? There are ways of making them work. (Think of Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Steve Martin in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid - both acting with beings who weren't really there.)
Essentially audition speeches should be self-contained, well chosen, well researched, well staged and well gauged for the room you are in and for whomsoever is watching you - just like a good production of a play. In fact an audition speech should be a 'mini-production' in its own right."
from "An Actor's Guide to Getting Work"