Auditions from the other side of the table

So, I'm stuck watching progress bars in work, and all the other work I need to do involves the program creating the progress bars, so I might as well do a blog post.

I'm in the midst for auditions right now. Specifically, I'm directing my play "Get it? Got it. Good!" for a one-act festival down in San Jose. The original director had to bow out, so I agreed to step in and direct. It's a shame, because I was curious to see what someone else would do with it. Still, I'm just glad to let a different audience see the show, and to tweak (and hopefully improve it) a bit.

We were supposed to have two nights of auditions and one day of callbacks. Because the company had the first night of auditions on Valentine's Day, so that ended up not happening. One would hope however, that we'd just be jam packed with people on the other evening. One would hope, and as often happens when one hopes, one would be disappointed.

We saw a grand total of six actors. My show alone, and there are four shows in total, has a cast of eight. My show is also male heavy. Five definite men, two women, and one role that can switch as needed. We have people who were seen at the TBA Generals and who have worked with Arclight before coming directly to callbacks. I asked how many of them were men. "One."

As it currently stands, even if everyone at callbacks is fantastic, I am going to need to cast at least half my show outside of the audition process. Fortunately, I know a lot of great actors. Unfortunately, if they are Equity members I can't use them. (I used two Equity members in the original production because I was footing the bill.)

Of the non-equity, still living in this state men from the last production, I know that at least one of them is otherwise booked during this time period and one of them is fully engaged with his own projects and recent offspring. So, I'm going through my list in my head and thinking of matches with characters.

The show will definitely be different. Different stage, different actors, improved staging and pacing, cleaned up some confusing lines, etc. I'm working hard to not let past performances color what the characters could be. It's challenging though, and why I was excited to see someone come to the script fresh as a director.

In the end, I expect that by Saturday I will have all my women cast. I also expect that by Saturday I'll be taking my list of awesome actors who are neither Equity nor otherwise engaged and doing some serious wooing.

Now, how did we get in this situation? Actors are always looking for work, after all. Well, there are a few things working against us.

1. No pay.
This always makes it hard to get actors of any substantial experience. Even a small stipend—enough to cover basic travel expenses—is enough to bring in more experienced actors. With no pay at all, the market dwindles rapidly.

2. The company is also holding auditions for their main production at the same time.
Ok, they're actually a week apart, but most of the actors I might have access to are auditioning for "Much Ado About Nothing", which is their big show of the year and will be rehearsing at the same time as the One-Acts. This includes most of the men.

3. Location.
Getting people down to San Jose is always a challenge. The commute can be brutal. Strangely enough, however, almost everyone who came on Tuesday was from the East Bay or the Peninsula. People who wouldn't have to commute however, didn't show up. I'm guessing they'll be at auditions for Much Ado.

4. Small company
The company has a great deal of potential, and lots of heart, but is still very much finding its feet. I've recently become a company member and am hoping that as labor becomes more divided that the company will be able to improve its output more and more and it will grow from a small to mid-sized company. But for now, people aren't signing up for the prestige factor.

In particular, I'm hoping that we can begin raising funds so that people can get paid (removing factor 1) and that we can look at the season and figure out ways to maximize our resources (point two). If we can do that, factors three and four will become less and less of an issue.