The trick to Auditions...

I am really bad at auditions.  

This is something I have come to understand, and accept. My problem is that I get really nervous, tense and shaky and everything seems to go wrong.  I have cried before, during and after auditions.  I have been rude to the audition panel (never a good idea!!) and I have made a song so different to the original that I'm not sure it was even classified as a song.
HOWEVER! I am going to impart my wisdom on how to give a good audition (It's surprising that I know how) and what to do when you're nervous, etc. 
I am going to classify these in two ways - Acting auditions and Singing auditions.

Acting:

1 - LEARN YOUR WORDS
                  You have no idea how many times I've gone into an audition room with a piece of paper in my hand holding my words.  This is such a bad idea! The audition panel will know that you're not very confident and probably will be able to see that you're shaking and you will be looking at them every two seconds out of nerves.  Take about 5 minutes every day leading up to your audition to learn your words and make sure that you're 100% confident on them. If they specify that the piece has to be from memory then this is obvious.  If you go in without words, you'll look confident and you'll actually be able to act it rather than bury your head in the piece of paper. 

2 - CREATE A CHARACTER
                Creating a character for an audition is just as important as creating it on the stage.  You need to understand and portray this character to the panel so, one, they know you're serious, and two, you can show off! If it's a well known character do some research and if not, have fun with it! But whatever you do...BE CONSISTENT! 

3 - ACCENTS
              Everybody dreads doing accents in auditions. I know they're difficult and hard to keep consistent but if you can do them it will show that you're above everyone else in that batch of auditions. If you decide to do an accent, say you want to do Welsh, I would suggest picking a famous person with that accent and studying them like there's no tomorrow.  Listen to how they sound when they say certain words and try to do the same yourself.  With Welsh I would watch Gavin&Stacey - not only because I love it, but because THEY'RE WELSH! - and maybe pick Bryn or Gwen (the less crazy people...well maybe not Bryn...) but because they have a more natural accent to copy.

Singing Auditions

1 - RELAX
           Singing is often the scariest part of an audition because so much can go wrong. You can miss your note, pitch something differently to your accompanist or you can just forget everything and freak out.  Just to make you feel more comfortable, I have done all of these.  You just need to relax! I know it's a difficult thing to do during a time of such pressure but seriously, it helps! My main trick is to lie on your back and breathe. This accesses deeper breathing muscles than you would normally use (hence why we lie on our back when we sleep, it's more relaxing) and you relax your whole body.  Not only are you doing this but you're actually preparing yourself to sing.  It will calm your nerves and relax your vocal folds making it easier to produce beautiful notes!

2 - WARM UP
            Never go into a singing audition 'cold turkey'. You will probably damage your voice and the nerves will kick in even more because you will probably hit a wrong note. Try running some simple scales up and down on the vowels (A E O U - no one really bothers with I).  Make sure to warm up higher than your song requires so that you feel as though it is lower when you come to it - no one wants to be scared by a high note, they're fun! If you do need to sing high notes, don't be scared by them.  Practice them before you go in and belt them if you need to.  If you back off them they're probably going to be flat and no one wants a flat note. Just go for it! 
I once had an audition for Mabel in the Pirates of  Penzance (look up 'Poor Wandering One' if you're curious) and I didn't warm up at all...stupid Lydia! If you know this song you will understand how high it goes.  I didn't think about it and I think I hit quite a few flat notes during that audition...it's a wonder how I actually got the part! But the moral of this story is (not just me showing off to let you all know how high I can sing) but if I had warmed up they wouldn't have been flat...actually...this wasn't a very good story to tell..there was no real point....oh well.

3 - THE ACTING
              You need to act during your songs.  The most common mistake is people thinking that singing doesn't require you to act and all they'll be looking for is how lovely your voice is.  WRONGO. You really need to give as much character to your song as in your dialogue (this is if you have both...if not, it still applies!). If needs be sing in front of a mirror  - because its really difficult to sing to other people - and make sure you see your facial expressions and try to mirror these with your voice.  The more feeling you give, the better the song will be.

So now you know how to give the best audition in the world.  JOKES.  But I hope this helps, I really do.  I'm not going to say that you should enjoy your audition because that's pretty much impossible, isn't it? I never enjoy them. However, you shouldn't be too scared about them because at the end of the day the theory is 'the more you do the better you'll get'.  It's kind of true.  I have done so many know that I'm not going to bother to count, but I try and remember that whatever happens in that room no one else but you and the audition panel will ever know (unless some horrible person tells other people...) and you just need to go in there and show them that you're the only one who can do this role, yeah?
Awesome.