Casting a show is such an odd window into ourselves, our community and our organization. It brings me back to a phrase that I've been thinking a lot about: "value-added". Some people have the perception that the "best" people are cast, period. Others believe that the people that the team knows are cast, period. (I'd be very curious to know what other perceptions are, especially from those people not cast.) What casting actually is--now that we are through it--is a way for us to physicalize and choose for this project those people that represent our highest "value-added" traits.
For the actor, casting means auditioning. Many actors audition with their own idea of what "value-added" means. I talked about this in my last post: internal versus external; those who say "Choose Me! Look what I did!" and those who say "Look what I can offer...". An actor can only offer himself as the best way to show his or her "added value". Anything else is a sham.
Score sheets are telling. Martin's score sheets were numerically based on 5 or 6 different musical skills. He came up with an average for each auditionee. He worked on his computer. Jane used paper, and had a long list of specific movement skills and stylistic criteria. She hand wrote her comments on individual sheets of paper and used a numerical scoring system. My score sheets encompassed both vocal and movement skills, and, additionally I looked for "charisma", "storytelling", "it". I used a check, check plus or check minus system along with copious notes about age, size and an individual's effect on me in their audition. I often asked myself the question: "How did this person make me feel?"
Our team exists under the umbrella of an organization that is in the middle of a 1.4 million dollar capital campaign. We need to spread the word. If all else in the audition is truly equal, (and boy, is THAT a debatable concept!!) we love good new people. Good new people have to work harder, but when we see them-- we want them! We unashamedly watch good new people in the social mix of auditions...how would they do in this company? Their "value-add" is high because without good new people, Lyric will die...and we were all new once!
Wading through this combined "value-added" information was a brutal
experience, BUT together we assembled an amazing cast of double and
triple threat performers with EVERYTHING that we were looking for...individually, none of us could have done that.
It's been an odd 10 days: the adrenaline rush of auditions, the nitty-gritty mental and language-based work of choosing a cast, the sheer mental and physical exhaustion of late nights and bad food, the grueling aftermath of talking (or not talking!) to those friends and loved ones NOT cast, the strangeness of meeting a real person for the first time when you've actually been thinking about them for weeks, the unbelievable thrill of hearing our cast sing for the first time, the reality of what the cost has been at our paying jobs, for our families and for our laundry...It's all a bit much. At the moment, I feel...almost lonely. We've crossed one mountain range, only to realize that the larger one is still ahead.
No shit, people. I am off....
To the Barricades!
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