Turning Away Good Actors

Turning away good actors. It's the most difficult part of the audition process. You lure them out on audition day with the hope of a juicey part in your next show -- maybe even a part they've been longing to play. They prepare a monologue, or a song, or both. Maybe they put the effort into updating their theatre resume. They take the time to arrange their schedule, maybe even their family's schedule, in order to get themselves to the audition appointment. Next they sit around waiting (the waiting is always murder), waiting for their turn to come. When it does, they are ushered into a classroom where a small handful of bleary-eyed people (the director, the musical director, the producer maybe), people waiting to judge their skills and fit for the available roles. Even then the guessing begins. What does it mean when the director asks me to do it again? Did I get it wrong? Did he not like me? The musical director let me go past 18 bars, to finish my song -- almost. Does that mean I was good? Why didn't they ask me more questions? This will go on long after the audition is over, often times until a call from the director with the offer of a role, or a polite rejection email comes. For some its agony. We as producers and directors put actors through this. Sometimes very good actors, sometimes very good actors who are our friends and who we are eager to work with. And yet in the end we don't cast them. Why? Why do we not cast obviously talented people in the show?

First let me say it's just as difficult to turn away a talented actor as it is for that actor to get the bad news that s/he won't be in the show. I know few people believe that, but it's true. Once the evaluation gets past the "are they talented enough to handle the role" step, and assuming there are no major conflicts, it really does come down to need, fit and vision. What are the specific needs of the production? Does the actor fit the role? Will they fulfill the director's vision for that character? What about the dynamic the director has in mind between the characters. I know this was especially hard for me during the casting of Driving Miss Daisy. I was pleasantly surprise by the number of actresses who auditoned for the part of Daisy. Around 12, I think. To be honest, I thought I'd be lucky if 12 people showed up to audition for all three parts combined. Then it was especially difficult to choose when it became clear that of the 12, as many as four actresses coud have handled the role. Actresses I'm eager to work with again in the future, even if they don't get the Daisy role. I found the same challenge with the other two characters. My solution was to look for the best blend of actors for the three roles. The dynamic, as I've mentioned. And early rehearsals have proven my choice the correct one. But in the process wonderful actors were left with out a role. It had nothing to do with their talents, or them as person's It all came down to what seems to work best when I put the pieces together.

As luck would have it, many of the best actors understand this. They take the disappointing news for what it is, a director choosing a direction, not rejecting them or their talent. Some actors even send kind notes. A nice way to say: "hey, I understand how the process works. Maybe my contribution will better suit the needs of your next show."

The Audition Hangover

The Rain on Daisy falls mainly in the hazy days of winter? Huh? Sorry, I'm so confused this morning. I'm suffering from a monumental audition hangover -- times two! This past weekend we auditioned actors for both Singin' in the Rain and Driving Miss Daisy at the same time. We had originally planned to hold separate auditions, but when Buzz Herman, our musical director, came up with an unexpected scheduling conflict on our Rain audition weekend, it became necessary to push the Rain auditions up and marry them with Daisy. (Why do I suddenly have bizarre visions of Gene Kelly doing a tango with Jessica Tandy?)

Audition weekend is always long and hard for the production team. Actors, singers and dancers march in one by one to strut their stuff. Some friends, some strangers, some who will be come new friends. But they keep coming. And we have to keep them all straight. After a while, your head starts to hurt, you get behind in your notes, and you begin to forget your own name. Luckily, we video tape every one's audition for later evaluation.

This weekend we sat through more than 15 hours of auditions in the communications building followed by a 6-hour casting meeting at my house. Trust me when I say it is both fun and brutal in equal measure. It also got pretty hairy on Saturday and Sunday. We were light in our audition sign ups going into the weekend. This was a result of a scheduling goof which resulted in Playful Theatre's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie (a tap dance heavy show) going up right around the same time as Rain, so we were competing for some of the same actors/skill sets. Playful held their Millie auditions the week before we did, so it cut into our pool of actors. On top of this, Pennington Player's My Favorite Year, which goes up around same time as Rain held early auditions to get a jump on the talent. With even more actors approaching burn out from doing the recent production of Beauty and the Beast, it was tough to get the best talent to sign up. That said, we got lucky. Much of the top talent in the area did show up -- eventually. Here's what happened.

As Saturday approached, actors started rescheduling their auditions. It's a phenomenon we call "jockeying". Our online scheduling system allows actors to pick and choose their own audition day and time on the schedule. As the audition day approaches, actors start to move their appointments to later in the day, or the next day. Some actors will reschedule their appointments several times. Sometimes it's just personal conflicts, but more often than not, it's actors trying to buy more time to work on their audition. So when the jockeying began, we found ourselves sitting around on Saturday for long stretches at a time waiting for the next appointment while the Sunday schedule suddenly got completely booked. This extreme had never happened before, but we were glad to have a full schedule on Sunday and braced for a long day.

And then it happened. On Sunday, we saw more people walk in then ever before. In fact, much of the Kelsey star power, people who often play lead roles started walking in off the street late in the day on Sunday. Actors started pulling other actors in to audition. Leading men and leading ladies walked in unexpectedly saying: "I've had a change of heart. Don't know if I can cut the dancing, but I'd like to be a part of the show if you can use me." Folks from other shows rehearsing down the hall wandered in and said: "I'm on a break, can I audition?" With only about an hour left in our day, the hallway was packed, two audition rooms were humming with actors doing their thing. It was standing room only, and then the bomb dropped. The band from Pierrot's production of Follies walked in with all their instruments. They were scheduled to rehearse in the same room we were using for the acting auditions (the band room). But they were almost an hour early. When I took a peek out of the audition room it looked like Alycia (who was managing the traffic flow) had them all crammed in with a shoe horn. Finally, at 6pm we moved to another room and gave up the band room to Follies, who's rehearsal started at 6:30pm. Rain and Daisy auditions continued for another hour before we saw the last actor, packed up and called it a day.

Like I said. Fun, but brutal.

More on the auditions and the casting meeting later.

Back in the Saddle

Glub, glub, glub, cough, cough! That's the sound of me coming up for air. After late nights and weekends crammed with theatre doings -- some backstage and some onstage -- I can finally come up for air and start posting to this blog again. That's right. I'm back in the saddle.

John and I and the rest of the OnStage team have been completely swamped since going into auditions for Emperor. Producing three shows in a season is a lot more work than I expected. Granted, we've brought this on ourselves, but still, we had no clue it would be another full-time job. Anyway, here's a quick recap since my last post.

1) We held a marathon weekend auditioning for and casting Emperor. About 70 people come out and audition on Saturday and Sunday, a great turn out. Then came the casting meeting, which started on Monday night at Buzz Herman's house and lasted until the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday. That's a story in itself, one that I'll save for another day.

2) Meanwhile, my brother John and I have been working on setting up the marketing for this season. That includes giant lobby posters for all three shows (in case you've been living in a cave the last few months, we're producing The Emperor's New Clothes, Driving Miss Daisy, and Singin' in the Rain); a large postcard featuring our three-show season which we'll use as a hand-out in various libraries, community centers and coffee shops; separate buckslips for each show (those are the promotional pieces you find in your Kelsey Theatre ticket envelope); and a large postcard promoting Emperor to school teachers (gotta beef up those school sales up).

3) While that was happening, John and I and Emperor director Alycia Bach-Cantor were working on a Short Play Festival produced and hosted by Arts YOUniversity. (The show was performed September 8 to a full-house). Alycia appeared in a piece called The Mystery at Twicknam Vicarage and did a wonderful job. John appeared in Twicknam as well and also directed a piece called Judgement Day. Meanwhile, I wrote and directed an original short play for the festival called The Road Not Taken, and also performed in Judgement Day. On top of writing, acting and directing, I did a little stage managing (everyone did) and played chief cook and bottle washer. No kidding, The Road Not Taken was set in a restaurant. There were real dishes to wash.

4) While that was happening, our production of Winnie the Pooh was nominated for two Perry Awards (yeah us!) -- one for Best Set Design (John), and one for Best Lighting Design (Kitty Geltik). What's more, John and I have been asked to be presenters at the Perry Awards Dinner. We'll be presenting the award for Best Costume Design for a Musical. With that going on, we wanted to be sure all our friends sat at the same table. Let me tell you, trying to pin down 10 busy theatre people to confirm a dinner date is hard enough, but to get them to cough up $60 per ticket was even tougher. It was a lot like herding cats. But it got done and we'll be going to the Perry's on September 16.

5) And if all that wasn't enough, John and I were working nearly every night and weekend for the past few months building a new website for the company. This blog is just a small part of it. The site itself probably has close to a hundred pages including photos, casts lists, feature articles, and tons of stuff on our new shows and most of our old shows. We have lots more in store for the website. By the time we're done (sometime next year?) the site will likely grow to several hundred pages. The goal has been to turn it into a resource for local actors, theatre patrons and potential volunteers -- and of course to sell as many tickets as possible.

Allrighty, then. The new website has been launched, the Short Play Festival is over, our Perry reservations are set, and Emperor rehearsals are rolling along smoothly with Alycia at the helm. That left me with a few minutes to bring you up to speed, and so I have.

I Saw Bat Boy Last Night

I saw Stars in the Park's Bat Boy last night. Wow! I have to admit, rock opera-style shows are not my cup of tea, but I couldn't help walking out being very impressed with this production. Diane, Gerry, and Lorraine Wargo have to be proud. Not only because they've produced a successful show, but because they've helped young Chelsea Wargo develop into an accomplished musical theatre talent. She did a wonderful job in the role of Shelley.

I last saw Chelsea play Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz two summers ago. Back then she was a young actress fighting off mosquitoes and a bad sound system at the park while struggling to command the stage in a production that I personally thought might have been a little too big for her to handle (at least on that night) . But last evening I saw an entirely different person. Her voice appears to have developed by leaps and bounds in the last two years. She's seems to have shaken the adolescent awkwardness we all deal with in youth and now has a more mature stage presence. She was a delight to watch. If she can tap dance as well as she can sing and act, I can only hope that she comes out to audition for our production of Singin' in the Rain.

The evening made me regret all the more my not seeing her perform the role of Eponine in Notre Dame High School's production of Le Miserables. I had every intention of going, but life just got in the way. Later, I heard good things about her performance. And I now have a better sense for what I missed. As a parent, I think I can speak for all Mom's and Dad's when I say that we don't want our kids to grow up. But sometimes it's a treat to watch when they do.

Another treat last night was watching Nicole Spadafino in the role of Meredith. It's always a pleasure to watch and work with Nicole, but this appeared to be a different kind of role for her. At least, different from what I've see her do. More serious, more emotionally real. I thought she brought a lot of gravitas to the role. And listening to her and Chelsea sing together was one of the highlights of the show for me. This may be overstating it, but I think Nicole made the whole production work. Meredith is a cornerstone role in the show. The stronger your Meredith, in my opinion, the stronger your show. Kudos to Diane for casting Nicole. I don't think she could have chosen a better rock on which to build her show.

Emperor Audition Prep

Tomorrow we officially start holding auditions for The Emperor's New Clothes. I say "officially" because we've already auditioned three people who couldn't make it this weekend. But tomorrow is when the rest of the 65 actors (both adults and children) will show up to sing, dance, act and generally strut there stuff. That means we need signage, paperwork, tables, supplies, video equipment, and a myriad of little and not so little necessities. I'm on the hook for some of the signage. If I'm going to see Bat Boy tonight, I'll need to either get my signage done early, or resign myself to doing it late tonight.

Meanwhile actors are still signing up for appointments and generally jockeying for position. What do I mean by that? It's simple. We use an online audition schedule where actors can sign up for the audition appointment time of their choice. They can also cancel their appointment. All from their computer desk top. This means that as the day of the audition appointment nears, actors start looking for more amenable appointment times. Usually, we see people dropping their Saturday appointments for Sunday appointments, or trading in their morning appointments for afternoon appointments. Often times, that's because they're looking for a few extra hours to work on their audition monologue and song. More power to them.

Oh, well. Better start working on my signage.