Ever
wondered how cue cards came to be a part of commercial auditions?
Bet you thought they were there to help actors get off script,
right? Not so. Used to be -- back in the late '60's and
early '70's in New York, before the advent of videotape
-- that actors would go to commercial auditions, toss away
the script and improvise.
This worked out fine except that you'd sometimes do a
bang-up audition, not get cast -- and then see your improv
on the tube two months later. The ad agency folk were
tapping into the actors' creativity for ad concept. SAG
told them that, if an actor was going to be required to
do "creative" audition, he would have to be paid for the
audition itself. So the purpose of cue cards was not to
help the actors see better, but to keep the actors from
getting ripped off by the ad agencies. One more reason
we need strong unions.
