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Turn Around Your Casting Conundrums
Finding the right formula to get the perfect players for your stage
You’ve started casting for your new production of “King
Lear,” “Pygmalion,” or “Saint Joan,” and as you begin
the audition process, you feel that excitement in your gut at the prospect
of seeing a new group of talented actors who are – hopefully – energetic,
prepared, inspired, and ready to tackle some of the most challenging roles
the theatre has to offer. Then, as the auditioners stream in one by one, your
heart slowly sinks, as young actor after young actor seems to have come to
the audition straight from bed - or, worse, from a four-day Phish concert.
Flip flops. Tattoos. Piercings. Unshowered, even. And, worse, often ignorant
of the playwright’s work – including the classic play in which they’re
hoping to be cast. This is the group ready to tackle the challenging poetic
meter of the Bard of Avon?
Indeed it is. Welcome to casting conundrums in the 21st Century.
“There’s a real shift in the seriousness of auditions for younger
actors,” notes Anne Marie Cammarato, producing director of the Delaware
Theatre Company. “When you work with older actors, they take auditions
very seriously. They read the play and they come to the audition prepared.
In this last round of auditions, however, young actors are coming to auditions
in flip flops, they haven’t read the play, and it’s all casual.
Something’s happened. There’s a lack of professionalism going on.”
In a sense, theatrical casting agents and artistic directors are lucky. In
a world where technology is shifting the creative arts in so many ways, the
nature of casting for the theater is, for the most part, one of the more stable
processes around. Even the looser work habits of the younger generation –
which have been increasingly documented over the past decade in articles about
corporate hiring that include quotes from very frustrated human resources
people – seem more indicative of different lifestyles than lesser levels
of skill or talent.
“Our expectations, and the way we frame auditions, has to change,”
says Cammarato. “We used to expect a level of professionalism, and now
that professionalism is different. It forces us to look past all that stuff
and just watch the actors at their craft, and not the actor as a professional.”
“Shows such as ‘American Idol’ perpetuate this, as does the
media that seems to have a new star de jour coming out of nowhere almost daily,”
adds New York casting director Stephanie Klapper. “I have encountered
young actors recently who felt that completing school was not a priority,
because they weren’t getting any younger, and were in a rush to get into
the professional business.”
That being said, though, there is still as strong a chance as ever that beyond
the lip ring lies an actor who’s put real work into developing his or
her craft. “I don’t think it’s a lack of skill,” says
Cammarato. “It’s just hard when you’re doing a play about World
War II to look past the body piercings, which a generation ago they would
have taken out. Often, women would wear a skirt to that audition. Now it’s
just, ‘I’m gonna go in my jeans and flip flops,’ and it throws
us because we’re not used to that. It’s not like the talent pool
has gotten less skilled, but their commitment to theater is different.”
But while generational differences make casting an even greater challenge
than before, it is far from the only challenge in these ever-changing times.
Reality television has combined with our celebrity-heavy culture to make name
performers more hotly desired for theaters on all levels, but the emergence
of quality dramas and comedies on basic cable has made casting such performers
more difficult, as pilot season is now a virtual year-round entity, keeping
many talented actors in New York – and, therefore, out of the regional
casting pool - well beyond the frost of winter. “The desire to have a
name performer has never been stronger,” says Klapper. “People feel
that having a recognizable name helps bring in the dwindling audiences, so
a television star goes a long way. But it’s gotten more difficult now
since pilots are done all year. Sometimes their management won’t let
them leave town to do regional theater, and that makes our job that much harder.”
And with changes in the culture comes a shift in the common language of the
industry, often weakening a casting tool that has been relied on throughout
theater’s history. “There was a time when there was an appreciation
for the history of the business and the longevity of performers,” says
Klapper. “Now, everything is immediate, and the appreciation of the history
of performing gets lost. So sometimes, if you ask for ‘someone with a
Katherine Hepburn quality,’ you’re met with a vacant stare. Some
agents are clueless about Katherine Hepburn or Bette Davis. Shocking but true.
That makes me a little sad.”
So with challenges building and regional theater facing ever-increasing competition
for its time and attention, the importance of finding just the right formula
for recruiting talent has never been greater. Cammarato is a long-time client
of Klapper’s, and estimates she uses her to cast about 80 percent of
her roles. By contrast, Blake Robison, producing artistic director for The
Roundhouse Theaters in Bethesda and Silver Spring, Md., uses Klapper for just
fifteen percent of his theatres’ roles. Each bases his or her needs on
a careful evaluation of the local talent, with Robison having the rich Washington,
D.C., talent pool at his disposal, while Cammarato’s distance from the
major urban centers makes outside talent a greater necessity.
“We do the local auditions first, filling as much as we can here, then
we turn to Stephanie for the roles that are difficult to fill, like character
roles in a tough age range, or if we’re trying to attract more of a name
actor for a flashy part,” says Robison, who, while at the Clarence Brown
Theatre in Knoxville, used Klapper for the casting of John Cullum in a revival
of “The Dresser.” Despite meeting so many of his casting needs locally,
Robison finds going outside his market invaluable for those truly challenging
assignments. “Being familiar with the New York marketplace is not something
I can do from Washington, D.C.,” says Robison, “so we rely on Stephanie
to have a good understanding of our theater and our aesthetic.” “It’s
really about the role,” says Cammarato. “If we know of someone locally
that the role is right for, then we use them, and it saves us on housing.
But the talent pool here is smaller than in New York. So if we can’t
cast the role locally, we go with Stephanie. It’s cheaper for us to keep
her on retainer than to pay her per role, and if we cast a role locally and
that person backs out, we can turn to Stephanie at the last minute and find
someone from New York.”
Whatever the need for a specific production, it’s essential to ensure
that the casting director fully understands a production’s needs. This
familiarity, in fact, is the key to a productive theatre/casting director
relationship. “Communication is a big word in this office,” says
Klapper, “and that means being really clear on a theatre’s needs
and expectations, having the script ahead of time, and talking to the director.”
Whether your casting director relationship is decades old or brand new, certain
preparations should be de rigueur for every production. “We work with
the director to create a breakdown that’s probably more detailed than
the one that gets sent to agents,” says Cammarato. “We send Stephanie
copies of the script, and then she compares the breakdown with what she imagines
the role should be. And often, she’ll call or e-mail me or the director,
and there’s a conversation back and forth to come to an understanding
about what we’re looking for.”
For theaters hiring an outside casting director for the first time, a commitment
to this sort of preparation on both sides should be declared at the outset.
“You need someone who’s enthusiastic about the job, and someone
who either knows something about the theatre or is willing to learn,”
says Klapper. “It’s very important that a casting person is able
to actually see the theatre where the work is being done, since part of our
job is selling our client to the actors as well as selling the actors to our
client.”
In addition to (or instead of) an outside casting agent, the time-honored
regional casting call can also be a theatre’s best friend. Here again,
the secret to getting the most out of watching 50-100 actors in one whirlwind
session is meticulous preparation. “You have to take impeccable notes
on these actors,” says Klapper, “because what you’re looking
for isn’t always immediate. It may be the fourth show in your season
that this person is right for. So you need to be clear on why they excite
you, because you’re gonna need to remember it six months from now.”
Of course, there is another approach to outside casting, which is to avoid
it altogether. Jack Phillips is the artistic director for The Theatre of Western
Springs in Western Springs, Ill., a community theatre that has used a professional
resident company model since its formation in 1929. The theatre casts only
its own members, who become so by being season ticket holders, completing
two two-week acting classes, and lending a hand backstage. For Phillips, a
past president of the American Association of Community Theater, casting this
way removes so much of the stress many other theater companies feel, while
still leaving him with an experienced and dedicated talent pool. “There
are people that have been here for thirty years, and people who come in new
and develop a whole new theatrical tradition,” says Phillips. “Plus,
it certainly keeps us away from people who audition well and then don’t
perform well.”
Phillips acknowledges that an avoidance of outside auditions could deprive
him of a potentially deeper well of talent, but feels strongly that the benefits
outweigh the losses. “We may miss exactly the right individual for a
given role,” Phillips says, “but the skill levels here are very
high. So I don’t feel like we’re trading off very much by doing
this.”
While casting provides challenges both old and new, Klapper says that given
the current condition of the theatre, finding the right casting formula has
never been more important, which means that everything from solid preparation
to seeing through the flip flops has never been more vital to the success
of the art form. “More than ever before, regional theatres are struggling
to survive,” she says, “and the burnout factor is so high for the
artistic directors because they need to work so hard to be supported by their
boards. So giving them a high quality of actor is more important than ever.”
To communicate your casting conundrums and discuss ways to avoid them, visit
the DramaBiz Magazine forums at www.dramabiz.com/forum.
