Casting

I would love to get some opinions as well about casting vs. pre-casting!

I will state right now that I am not all that familiar with how casting/pre-casting works or is responded to in other theater communities because the majority of my professional works has been in Richmond, hence why I'm asking for opinions here!

I don't really take issue with a director knowing who he likes to work with and pre-casting certain roles. The issue I take is with holding auditions under the pretense that the roles aren't pre-cast when they actually are. Maybe this is just a bad habit of a few indecisive directors who want to 'shop around' before announcing that the role is going to the exact person everyone knew the director would pick anyway. If a director wants a specific person for a specific role and needs to cast the rest of the show, then the audition notice should specify that. It is disrespectful of the actors' time and incredibly misleading.

As a final open-ended statement of something else that needs improvement in this community: callbacks. I have been to one too many disorganized and unreasonably lengthy callbacks. Once again, extraordinarily disrespectful of the actors' time.

Thoughts? I'd love to get some other perspectives on this.

As an actor who was precast, I have some strong feelings on both sides of the argument. During the entire process I knew that I was asked and hadn't "earned" it, and that put a lot of pressure on me to not disappoint anyone (which is inevitable). There will be those that absolutely abhor what you do and how you do it. I know some people that I would have cast ahead of myself. Do we, the actors, feel it starts with us simply not accepting these roles. What performer will do that? Whose responsibility is it to curb this trend? Directors, producers, performers?

See, I don't see precasting as a problem as long as the director/producer is upfront about it. Sure, it's a little disappointing when the auditions for a show I've had my eye on come around and the one part I was really interested in is listed as unavailable, but that's life in the arts. Actors know (or should know) that somebody being precast is only one in an endless list of reasons that we won't get a role. What DOES seem to be an issue in this town is more along the lines of what Guest000 was talking about- directors precasting certain roles in their shows and then holding open auditions that say every role is available. It's never official, of course, possibly because some of these companies want to create the illusion of fairness, but this is a small community- we all know it's happening. Seems to me a lot of awkward feelings could be avoided if audition notices were a little more honest- then precast actors might not feel quite as uncomfortable (though for the record, aliffnd, that director must have thought you had "earned it" somehow) and countless other actors wouldn't feel like their time was being regularly wasted.

I have to say I also agree with the comment about entitlement. I've noticed several comments on these boards saying that there should be more opportunities for high school or college students, and honestly, why? Training programs are one thing (and Richmond does have some good ones) but most companies in this area aren't in the business of making sure everyone who wants it gets their fair share of stage time, nor the business of helping actors build their resumes before they head off to college or larger markets. I agree that it would be nice for there to be more opportunities for the 18-30 crowd (arguably the largest demographic of actors in the area, making those roles that are available exponentially more competitive) but expecting companies to tailor their seasons to us seems a little silly. We may be a smaller market, but we're still a competitive one. Maybe one step toward Richmond becoming a more generally professional community would be for all of us to shift our mindset a little more toward that of larger cities and to be upfront about the fact that theatre is a business (a wonderful, creative business with the potential to do amazing things, but a business nonetheless) and that fairness really doesn't have much to do with it. Getting noticed and eventually cast in this town is an uphill battle. Those of us still lower down may not like that, but the only way to get to the top of that hill is to keep climbing.

I think your "launching pad" theory pretty much hits the nail on the head. How can we expect the community at large (and later, the region and/or country) to start seeing us as a major theatre destination if we the artists don't start treating it as one? You wouldn't see people in, say, Chicago arguing that there should be more opportunities for young people to build resumes before they go to college or New York. Opportunities DO exist here for young people- not enough for everyone, but that's the nature of theatre. (Not to mention that I've worked in a community where there WERE enough performance opportunities for everyone who wanted them- trust me, we're better off.) And yeah, a lot of the same people do tend to get cast in the same kinds of roles- directors like to work with them and audiences like to see them, and whether or not individual actors understand why is kind of irrelevant. Instead of arguing that companies shouldn't use them as much, maybe more of us should focus on trying to become one of them- that's what people in bigger markets do.

And, to respond to my own post, I just recalled the inspiring feature on the Actor's Equity website from theatre veterans telling "how I got my equity card." Perhaps we need a discussion, here or on FB's Richmond Theatre page (or even in the Richmond threatre playbills that would like to devote the space, and can) from OUR veterans telling "Why I work in Richmond theatre."

I really appreciate some of the latest posts in this thread. You have brought some reason to this discussion. I am not a fan of those who complain about the same people being cast all the time and objecting to pre-casting. As has been pointed out, professional theatre is a business. Decisions are made with both artistic AND financial aspects as a part of the consideration.

But I also want to make this point. As an actor who has been fortunate enough to work very consistently in Richmond for the past decade, I started out the same way as everyone else does. I walked into an audition not knowing anyone. No favors, no friends, no inside scoop. I walked in, auditioned, and was cast. And what has kept me working are the things that matter in professional theatre. I show up on time. I work hard. I come prepared, I'm easy to get along with. I take direction well and hopefully, I have some talent and give good performances. These things matter, all the way up the professional ladder. Any real theatre pro knows this.

So here is some advice... Continue to improve. Take any opportunity and make the most of it. Be on time, be prepared and don't be difficult to work with. Don't bitch and moan. Directors hate working with people with negative attitudes, and this IS a small community. Don't be that person. Instead, be the person willing to do anything you are asked to do.

One last thought - I can tell you this from direct knowledge and experience, all of the people who you think get cast in every show have almost certainly auditioned for a role in the last 6 months that they did NOT get. All of them. Well, maybe not Joe Inscoe, but pretty much everyone else. But they don't stop. They don't complain on theatre forums. They go to another audition the next day. And so should you...