It’s Show Time : Interviewees Make Their Play for Roles in TV Games

Sandy Leach and Tammy Caserio beamed as they entered the Festival of Arts Forum Theatre in Laguna Beach on Friday morning, dressed in metallic purple pants. The mother and daughter knew they would attract attention.

Dressing to impress was part of their strategy to be singled out during auditions for “High Rollers” and “Bargain Hunters,” game shows being produced by Merrill-Heatter Productions for broadcast this summer and fall.

For four hours Friday, more than 40 would-be contestants answered questionnaires about their personal interests and were interviewed by contestant coordinator Tracie Fiss.

Men and women, old and young, newcomers and game show veterans, they provided the variety that Fiss was seeking.

“We’re pretty much looking for people who have a knowledge of how to play the game and have a good personality and have fun with life,” Fiss said.

Their purple outfits glittering under the theater’s dim lights, Leach and Caserio said they felt good about their chances of appearing on “Bargain Hunters,” which will premiere this fall.

“It’s a show I feel confident I know a lot about,” said Leach, 46, of Laguna Beach. “Twenty years ago I was on ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ and won a children’s bedroom suite. And my son still uses it.

“We love to bargain-hunt, so when we saw the name of the show, we said, ‘Hey, that’s for us.’ ”

“We’ve got closets full of bargain outfits,” added Caserio, 25, of Laguna Niguel. “These are bargain outfits we have on.” She pulled two price tags from her shimmering shirt pocket. Each outfit originally cost $150. After several mark-downs the total for both was $15.

“We love quality, but we like to get it at a good price,” Leach said. “That’s why we’ve become bargain hunters.”

Daneen Kniess, who lives in Chino Hills and teaches in Placentia, arrived at the audition in hope of being as lucky as she was two years ago on “The Price Is Right.” She won $10,000.

“My husband thinks I’m an avid game show watcher,” she said. “I watch them at night. I love to watch ‘Jeopardy.’ ”

Kniess said that on “The Price Is Right,” the people who attracted the most attention were chosen as contestants.

“You just do anything and everything to get noticed,” she said. “You have to be really aggressive. I just went berserk.”

Won Year’s Worth of Soup

Patti Klingenmeier of Laguna Beach, an artist and part-time teacher, brought her husband, Tom, to the auditions.

“He said he’d just watch, but I knew once I got him here I’d force him to fill out an application,” she said. “We don’t have a meal without a game show on TV.”

Klingenmeier said she has taken friends to see “The Price Is Right” three times, and each time one of them was invited to “come on down” out of the audience. In 1985, she won carpet, a year’s supply of soup and cake mixes and other prizes.

“I’m usually pretty outgoing, but when you get up there, you’re aware of all the lights and cameras,” she said. “You don’t hear anything, so it’s a lot of luck. It’s easy to look stupid.”

“She sounded stupid,” her husband said. “She made a fool of herself.”

Audrey Collins of Laguna Beach left work on her 20-minute break to audition, but by the time someone let her cut into line so she could interviewed, she had been there an hour.

“I’m a ham,” she said. “I don’t care about the money.”

All the would-be contestants were told by Fiss, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” about whether they’d be invited back for second interviews, so they’re spending the weekend in limbo.

But Collins said she wouldn’t be upset if she wasn’t called back: “I love to fill out applications, which is probably what I’ll be doing when I get back to work.”