Audition Assets

 This post is mainly for my theater friends. What do you consider the strongest assets you bring to an audition? Not necessarily the assets you bring to a role should you be cast, but the strengths you have that would encourage a director to cast you? What are you weakest ones?

For me, I think my strongest asset is the ability to give a good cold read. I pride myself on getting up on stage with a script or side in hand, one that I may have had only five or ten minutes to look at, and flawlessly perform the part. I know how to pronounce the difficult words, I know how to look up from the page and then back without losing my place, I can find a character and a voice for that character.

As a director, I value that in an auditioning actor, because it's difficult to know how the actor will perform when cast if he or she is stumbling through a cold read.

My weakest asset? This only applies to musicals, of course--I can't dance. I have no training in it and I have the rhythm of a centipede with all left feet. I hate when I have to do a dance audition for a show in which I am trying out for a character who doesn't dance. Want an idea of how bad my sense of rhythm is? Watch this video:

(I can sing in rhythm, of course...but I can't move in it.)

So, what do you bring to an audition that will get you cast? And what do you hope will not be asked?