Thursday June 19

I have just finished posting the cast list for My Way. This is always the most difficult day for any director. There were 2-3 people I could have cast for each part in the show that would have done a great job. In a professional theatre it is all about a paid job. You don't have to be encouraging to anyone or care if they feel bad about not being cast. In community theatre we spend so much time trying to develop confidence and skills in performers both experienced and inexperienced that it hurts when you encourage people to audition and to participate and then they don't get cast. I know that both April and I agonize more over who didn't get cast or who didn't get cast in the role they wanted than most people realize. Many of the people who audition for the plays are friends of ours from the community or the children of friends. We try our very best to be as neutral as possible when it comes to casting shows. Who will do the best job for this play with this group of people.

Sometimes it is easy to make the decision on who is cast because the actor has a better vocal range or they can dance better. Sometimes they have a better sense of character than others. The tougher casting comes when you are trying to group people together. Who is taller or shorter than someone else relative to other cast members. Who looks older or younger. There are no easy guidelines sometimes when there are not clear actor choices so you have to go back to the script. How does the playwright describe the character. Is there anything the character needs to do that is specific to the actor.

In everything in life, especially theatre, it is a matter of sticking to it. My favorite story is from the father of a child I cast as the lead in a children's show. This child was on top of the world. He did a great job in the role. The next show he auditioned and was sure her was going to be cast as the lead again. I cast him as a non speaking rock. His father came up to me and told me that casting his son as a rock was the best thing that ever happened to his son.

Like the real world in theatre, publishing, music and so many other creative industries it is a matter of learning how to handle not getting the part, the music gig, the book published. As I tried to explain to one very distraught actor once- It doesn't mean I'm mad at you or don't like you or that you don't have talent or couldn't do the part or any of those things. It just means that for that show at that time someone else did a better audition or worked better for the way the director interpreted the script. April and I constantly talk about her casting difficulties with shows. She will often say I can go older or younger with this cast. Should I cast an 8 year old and everyone else who is younger has the leads or should the lead be 13 years old and use older kids as the leads. It's a tough call and often it is just a gut feeling as to which way to go with a show.

Sometimes its also feast or famine-For Anything Goes lots of parts were available for inexperienced and experienced performers. Anything Goes calls for a cast of 25-30 people. We have 20 in the cast. We didn't fill all of the chorus parts. For My Way it is a cast of 4 people- 2 men and 2 women- we had 16 wonderfully talented people audition and I didn't cast 12.

Tonight Anything Goes starts back up for the second weekend. The actors arrive at 6 pm to start warm-ups. We picked up the costumes from the dry cleaners this afternoon all freshly cleaned after last weekends run and they will dance and sing for 5 shows before they take a break again.

General Fire extinguisher is here today to check all of our fire extinguishers and emergency exit lights. We are inspected by them every June and the Fire Marshall usually makes his annual inspection about 2 weeks later.

The drama camp yesterday and today rehearsed the play and several of the kids learned how to use the shop tools to make huge buttons, scissors, needles, etc... for the mice to carry during the Cinderella song. The props were also painted by the campers. I think we got more paint on the props than on the kids but for some kids who really got into the painting hopefully their parents will be able to wash out the latex paint they got on themselves.