PSA from your friendly audition monitor!

A dear friend who is no stranger to these pages recently published these words on her Facebook page after serving a day as an audition monitor.  Heed her well!

Its that time of year again. I monitored almost an entire day of YAP auditions yesterday and would like to give you some observations...

1. Always have extra copies of your resume/headshot/materials. Always. Have, like, 10 extra copies in your binder or folder at all times. It will cost you very little money and space to just be prepared. A very large number of people yesterday seemed surprised that the panel wanted 3 copies of their resume. Many people didn't even have one copy. What if there was a surprise person from another company there who loved you and wanted your info?
2. Its useful to have them also available for emergency printing. Many of the fancy copiers at FedEx Kinkos, Staples, etc have direct printing from Dropbox and Google drive. Even easier is to have them on a little USB thumb drive that you can print from basically anywhere.
3. Be early. People cancel for a myriad of reasons and not getting totally off schedule will help everyone.
4. Be nice to the monitor. We are often friends/colleagues of the people you want to be working for. If you're an asshole to us, I guarantee you we will tell the people inside. Unless you're the second coming of Pavarotti, they'd rather hire someone just as good as you, whom they'd actually like to spend 6 hours a day with. This is ESPECIALLY true if you're trying to crash the audition. 
5. If you're trying to crash, come at the beginning of the day, warmed up and ready to kick ass. Coming in an hour before they're done and already behind schedule because some poor tenor was asked to sing 4 arias isn't going to help your cause. Also, if you're sitting for a while, KINDLY remind us that you're there. We haven't forgotten you out of spite. I promise.
6. I always have to remind myself of this, too: THEY WANT YOU TO BE GOOD. They're rooting for you to be awesome. If you're good, their job is much easier. The panel is on your side and deeply wants to like you. It isn't a jury where they're looking for mistakes. They WANT to hire you.
7. If you can't make the audition, please cancel ASAP. Often times there's a waitlist longer than Leporello's catalogue. Give someone else a fighting chance.

I'm sure I'll have more PSAs later. Keep fighting the good fight, friends. Love and Hugs!