From the department of Fun Audition Stories Department:

You never know. Most of the time you’re guessing. And, if you’ve done this long enough, you’ve learned you shouldn’t be guessing. That’s a fool’s game.

So when I got an audition for a role requiring an English dialect I was not familiar with, and was not listed in the Special Skills section of my resume, I wondered why. Then I decided: Hey, that’s not my business, to wonder why. Surely casting has their reason to want to see me…or why else would they have offered the opportunity? There was a note in the breakdown that the dialect need not be flawless, just the best the actor could muster.
So I reckoned the producer would surely hire a dialect coach, were I to be cast. Right?

But then there was that other thing. Perusing the sides – the full script was not shared – I got the uneasy feeling the character I was reading for was of a somewhat different skin color than myself. His name sounded white enough but he spoke in a certain way that, to me, seemed indicative of an ethnicity that did not include me as a member. But, I rationalized, maybe that’s just the way English speaking people of that dialect I did not possess, spoke. Regardless of skin color. Or, hey, maybe this was one of those colorblind productions where actors were cast against their ethnicity…

So I put all that aside and researched the dialect. Then practiced the dialect. Learned my lines. Practiced my lines with said dialect. And three days later showed up for my audition.

Two thirds through the first page of five, the casting director suddenly yells out: “Why is he reading for John? John is a black man!”