If your audition sheet says that auditions will start at 7:00pm, and you and almost everyone who is going to audition is there at 6:45, don't hold off until 7:45pm to start the auditions.
If you insist on holding auditions with all the applicants present, then read all the applicants at least once before re-reading anyone. (Unless there's obviously nobody else who can do that part.)(I was read first, so this doesn't apply to me.)
If you've read someone in a part twice, and s/he obviously has never read a script before in his/her life, politely thank the actor and allow him/her to stay offstage, or make cuts quickly. Don't keep reading him/her.
Unless you're doing non-traditional casting, don't read someone for a part that doesn't fit his/her age range, when there are three or four people in the seats waiting to read for that role. After age 35? Not going to be an ingenue. Under 25? Not going to be the elderly spinster! If the script says, "Why is the butler always SO OLD?" don't put in a 36-year-old man, because he may very well like that part, and actually play it instead of just "filling in," and get more laughs than any of the age-appropriate actors there.
If you still haven't made up your mind after two hours of auditions, call back a few people, but don't call back 20 out of 25 auditionees. Just send everyone home and make callbacks for another night.
Saying, "We've decided this year to spare ourselves the heartache of calling every person we haven't cast, so you'll have to call the casting hotline to find out if you've been cast," may be accurate and fair, but sounds really rude. Actors don't care about the casting committee's feelings. Just say, "Thank you all. We'll be calling back those who have been cast." No harm, no foul.
When you say, "This will be the last scene of the night," please send the people who aren't in that scene home. There's no point in making them stay and watch other people play onstage.
Finally, if an actor puts down, "Any role but [the lead], please, PLEASE don't keep sending him onstage to read for the lead. Really. He's not being polite or humble or anything...he might have read the play and realized that the lead is deadly dull. He might be much, much better as a character actor. He might have been cast as the lead before and sucked at it. He doesn't want the part, so read him for other stuff.
I had two choices for auditions tonight. Because I chose to go to Sean and Heather's house last night, I missed the first round of auditions for both shows, so I had to make a choice between a play I knew (which is wonderful) and a play I'd never read before.
The play I knew was being directed by someone who had directed my short play Hit Me a couple of years ago, and I was very tempting, but it only had three male parts, and two of those parts had to be romantic leads. The catch is, the romantic leads also get to play other parts in the play, reenacting various Shakespearean characters. I was tempted, but then I saw the other audition notice.
This one called for 9 "stock murder-mystery characters." It sounded perfect for me. I can do accents. I can play silly, or over-the-top, or very queeny or even a decent old woman (or a terribly ugly transvestite). Nine character roles? Sign me up!
So I made the choice to audition for this show I hadn't read. I got to the theater a little early, turned in my home-made headshot ("Ooh! How professional!" said the stage manager...it is community theater, but the headshot ain't all that), and picked up one of the scripts.
The audition sheet was a little misleading. There were eight stock murder-mystery characters and one lead. The lead has a level head, but is surrounded by all these crazies. He has lines like, "I wish I knew what was going on," and "Really? Tell me more."
So I asked for my audition sheet back, and wrote in under "Parts You Are Interested In" ... "Anything but [the lead]."
There's a stuffy butler and a scheming lawyer and a way-too-boisterous hero who saves the day, and even an old lady (think Miss Marple) which would be hilarious to cast with a man. And then this lead, who reacts to all those male parts (as well as five wonderful, scene-stealing, over-the-top female parts).
I sat down, and waited for the auditions to begin. Don't you know it, the very first name they picked was mine, and said, "Patrick, you'll be reading [the lead]."
Okay, things were getting started, and I am in the proper age range for it (though six other men were, too), so I was a good sport and read the part. I didn't try too hard; I underplayed it a lot, because I was waiting to be read for other roles.
The second time up, I was asked to play the lead again. This time, I overplayed it, desperately going for laughs, so they'd see that I really would be better cast as a character who is more of a caricature.
Third time up (at this point, two of the other men hadn't been called at all yet, which pissed me off, both as an actor and as a director) I was asked to read the butler. The scene in which I read says, "Why aren't any of the butlers young and good-looking?" Now, I can play ugly. I can play old. But there were five or six men in their late 50s to early 60s who, while attractive, would fit that description really well. (To an ingenue...some girl who might think that anyone over 40 has one foot in the grave.)
That one, I played to the hilt. I took on a Tim Conway-esque shuffle and put on an old-man voice. I screwed up my face so that it looked like my dentures might be slipping. I put on a doddering English accent (think "Young Mr. Grace" from Are You Being Served?) and got tons of laughs. I knew that I wouldn't be cast for this role (the casting committee didn't seem to be looking to do any non-traditional casting tricks), but I thought it would show them that I'm better at characters than at leading roles.
Next time up: Leading man.
One of the women couldn't get a cockney accent going when it was necessary, she kept slipping into an American Southern accent, so I said to her, "C'mon, luv, don't git yer knickers all in a bunch!" and she had it. Sometimes you just have to hear an accent in order to get it going.
We took a break after that, and waited for a good half-hour for the casting committee to "whittle down" the potentials from 25 to 20. Nice of them to be so blatant about it. I was called back. All right! I thought. I'll get to play the obnoxious hero, or the scheming lawyer, or maybe even the butler again!
Nope. Three more times onstage saying things like, "I wish somebody would tell me what's going on," and "This is a most unusual glass."
And then it was over. I saw my headshot on a pile that had been separated from the others, so it either means I'm being considered for a role, or I'm definitely out.
If I'm being considered for the lead, I hope I'm definitely out. If I'm being considered for another role (except the butler), I'll be mighty surprised.
I should have auditioned for the other show.
I am not a leading man.
This was made blatantly clear to me when I saw a tape of my performance in Memoirs of a Gorilla, in which I played the lead. The show was fun and silly, but my role was to play "straight man" to a bunch of crazies, and while I was thrilled to be onstage for the entirety of the show, I looked back on my performance and realized that I'm dull as dirt in that kind of a role.
I could work on it, I suppose, but it's not my life's ambition to be an actor. I like to play onstage, and get the exposure to help me in my playwriting. I can only know what's interesting or maddening to an actor working with my script if I've been interested or maddened by a script written by somebody else.
I come from an improv background. I like to play multiple roles (I played three in Sylvia, for which I won an acting award, four in Working, despite the fact that I can't sing all that well, two in Man of La Mancha and nine roles in The American Clock, which was possibly the best theater experience I've had as an actor) and if not, play those roles that come in, make an impact, and then get offstage (Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing, a transvestite in Stiff Cuffs, Mishkin in Fools). If I were to take the primary role in a play, it would have to be in something like The Santaland Diaries or Irma Vep, where the "lead" is someone who is a character, not a traditional leading man.
I know my strengths onstage. When I was in an improv comedy group, I always won a skit we called "The Dating Game" because I played out-there characters rather than attractive leading men. When I auditioned for Eastern Standard, I wanted to play Drew, who is one of the "leading men," but sees himself as unattractive, acts a bit outrageous, and gets the funny lines. I had no interest in playing Peter, who was an attractive, troubled man dealing with AIDS. Both roles are very well-written, but Peter is the more traditional "leading man," and I know I can't hold an audience like that.
Some men have it. They have the ability to capture an audience with a twinkle of the eye or a gorgeous face or an overwhelming presence. They can take the "straight man" role or the "romantic lead" role and turn it into something wonderful. I can't. I've tried, and I just don't have "it," whatever "it" is.
And you know what? I'm fine with that. I'm happy with that. There was a guy who showed up for auditions who, if he had any grasp on how to read a script and walk on both feet, would have blown all other competition out of the park, because he wasn't only gorgeous but also had presence. You wanted to look at him onstage, and it actually pained me to see him stumble through his lines, because I wanted so badly for this guy to succeed. (And to play a role opposite him so that I could share a dressing room.)
That's not me. I have to work hard to capture an audience's attention, and I like that work. I like being the unassuming guy who stands onstage until given a direction or a character and then takes the audience by surprise with a pitch-perfect rendition of someone grotesque, or silly, or unexpected. When I played Tom, Phyllis and Leslie in Sylvia, the judge at the festival said that he thought I did a phenomenal job, because he really saw me as three separate people. When I had to fill in, with one day's notice, for three roles in The American Clock (on top of the nine I was playing already), the rest of the cast applauded me in the dressing room.
I'm not the best actor out there, and that's the point. I have a limited vocabulary, which is that of clown, or out-there character. I can play it "straight," as long as "straight" is a character who is something out of the norm.
I simply am not a leading man.
With my luck, I'll get cast as the lead in this show. I suppose that's a good thing, but I just know the director is going to be disappointed if he does so, because I don't have the looks or the presence or (frankly) the interest in playing straight guy to a bunch of characters I'll be interacting with. If offered, I may turn down the role and ask if I could be cast in another (generally, I find that they call the leads first). That might be horribly gauche of me, however.
Of course, it's more likely that they won't cast me at all, which will be a huge relief. The play is fun, but not the best-written thing I've ever read. It's perfect for a community theater that caters to a "safe" audience who needs to be told that "adult language will be used for this show" and thinks that Arsenic and Old Lace is just about as cutting-edge as they want to see, thank you very much.
I'm not knocking it. I don't think I'll ever be cast in a professional production, so I'll try to find the interesting community theater productions out there and go for those.
I was asked to make a fake pie with half a severed head in it for The Compleat Wrks of Wm Shakespeare, Abridged, which will be fun. I don't know if I'll use laquered pie dough or sculptor's plastic to make it, but it's a challenge I'm up for.
I also volunteered to do costumes for The Odd Couple for my friend Chris next year. He wants to set it in the 60s, which I like, because I don't have to do any real costume building (except maybe for the Pigeon Sisters), but I can go vintage shopping for Felix and Oscar, which will be a hoot.
So my toe will be dipped in the workings of actual shows; I'd just like to get onstage at some point. It may have to be with my own work, which is fine. I have a show called Eight Stories I'll Never Tell My Mother which would be tremendously fun to do (once I've finalized it). I'm going to shop it to a couple of the more contemporary theaters out there, and see if they'll take a chance on it.
At any rate, it's well after midnight, so I know I won't be getting a call from the casting committee tonight. Thank goodness!
Please don't let them call. I'd just like to put it behind me.
