You may have seen the story on American Theatre about the slew of people who took to TikTok to “audition” for St. Louis theatre, The Muny’s production of Legally Blonde.  I use the quote marks because according to the article, the audition process involved uploading a video to YouTube or Google Drive and providing a link to The Muny by February 1.  The appearance of videos on TikTok exploded the weekend of February 3-4 and participants seemed more motivated by the desire to express themselves than win a place on the cast.

Yet, as usual on TikTok and beyond, there has been some confusion over what exactly this phenomenon is. Is this a TikTok trend or an actual audition? Several TikTokers posted videos saying that they weren’t sure if they were just participating in a TikTok trend or actually auditioning for the Muny.

Absurd as this may sound to a casual onlooker, this absurdity aligns with TikTok’s messy culture. That many of Legally Blonde dance call videos are self-deprecating adds to the Gen Z aesthetic, which continues to set the tone on the app. Many of these dancers know they aren’t going to book it; they know they’re unlikely to see their name in lights. So what do they do? They ham it up, finding the humor in the fast-paced dance.

While The Muny wasn’t using TikTok as part of the audition process, they did have 1,400 people submit through their official video submission auditioning process. This approach might go a long way toward achieving equity and representation goals for many theaters. Having all these TikTok videos may also increase interest, awareness, and perceptions of theater’s accessibility among more people.

As the American Theatre article notes, a lot of people do post their auditions to TikTok in an attempt to generate enough buzz to gain a higher level of consideration, number of followers on social media has been a consideration in the audition process for years in some places, or to simply garner fame independent of a formal production.

However, the article also addresses the mixed feelings that can arise. While productions are happy to get viral attention, there are some other considerations:

Of course, posting dance call self-tapes on TikTok raises some ethical concerns, particularly as it relates to dance copyright, which mirrors larger conversations about TikTok and dance credit. The issue of credit and payment is definitely something that choreographer William Carlos Angulo had on his mind.

“The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society is my union, and they are responsible for protecting the work I do on plays and musicals,” Angulo said. “However, because their jurisdiction covers productions only, I am left to sift through the legal implications of ‘going viral on TikTok’ completely by myself. Because I have spent my entire choreography career being protected by my union, it never occurred to me to copyright my work until now.” Angulo has only just begun the long process of copyrighting the dance call audition.

Despite these muddy waters, Angulo recognizes the “powerful culture-making” that takes place on the platform. “Learning dances in my living room by playing and rewinding tapes of old MGM musicals and awards show performances brought me a lot of joy as a child,” recalled Angulo. “Seeing that reflected back to me through the thousands of videos of young people doing my choreography in their living rooms has brought me a new kind of joy that I cannot describe.”