Two Monday's ago (8 February) Isidingo launched the soapie's nationwide reality search to discover someone to play an upcoming new character on the show. The auditions started in Bloem, moved to PE and Durbs and arrived in Cape Town yesterday (15 February).
The new character's name: Ace - a sports anchor.
A description of what he's like: physically attractive in a sexy, masculine way.
This is what the judges have been looking for in auditionees:
Fluent in English: an accent is no problem at all, even if it is strong, so long as viewers are able to understand his English with no effort.
Acting ability. Criteria include: understanding of content, variation in pace and pitch accordingly, good articulation, has a warm, rich voice. The role requires high energy, a sense of humour and intelligent delivery.
Must sound completely natural when speaking pre-written script learnt off by heart. No deviation from the script is allowed. Auditionees should have the ability to sound completely credible, even speaking dialogue different from his speakng style.
The X-factor. Someone with presence. The guy men want to be and women want to be with.
The size of the role: Big. A main character, someone who's gonna have a lot to say, which means that whoever wins the role
must be able to act:
AUDITION'ee HOPEFULS POSING AS Ace
So-so - your first impression? Anyone seem suited? You'll be able to be the judge of their acting soon - I took a bunch of video clips of everyone doing an Ace that I'm gonna put together for OMG scrutiny. And of course there's the result of what's been going on:
The judges (left to right): Tshego Monaisa (SABC Commissioning Editor), Mpotseng Lebentlele (SABC3 Brand Manager), Gray Hofmeyr (Isidingo creator) and Debashine Thangevelo (Tonight journo - Debashine's covering the auditions in her column.)
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Through the auditions the judges have been choosing their faves from each city and once the auditions end they'll be choosing a Top 5 overall.
The Top 5 are going to be featured doing their thang in an hour-long TV special on Thursday, 11 March at 21h00. This is the point at which everyone gets to see them to decide who's best for the role.
Between 11 and 12 March viewers will vote and the winner will be announced on 3Talk that afternoon. Immediately afterwards - not the next minute but soon, you get my meaning - the newcomer joins the soapie and will start to appear in storylines in the follow-up weeks because of the show filming scenes in advance.
AUDITION WRAP
Two more audition rounds remain: both in Jozi, at Atlas Studios in Milpark - on Thursday (18 February) and Friday (19th). Auditions start at 08h00 - if you're keen to go, you can arrive and register.
Everything that you'll need besides yourself is at the venue. There are five different monologues for auditionees - everyone gets one to perform. They're given out randomly so no-one knows what they're getting beforehand.
Once you've registered you have time to learn and rehearse the lines and then you go into the judges to perform on camera.
PS: one of the monologue's is Ace defending himself from tabloid stories about him mistreating women aka: A to Zola.