The highs and lows of auditioning for a cast
This Saturday just gone our director Mike and I spent the afternoon auditioning for the two male parts in the new production of Marina and the Clone and I had a blast!
The process of whittling down the applicants to just ten was difficult enough - there's so much talent out there and so many people looking for work - but it's one that between the two of us we managed.
So there we were with our ten chaps all lined up in twenty minute intervals on my perfectly organised schedule when a couple of days before the auditions along came another that we felt we just had to see. I wanted to be brutal and say 'no, you missed the cut off' but the reality is that no matter how strict you want to be and how organised your shit is, if it could benefit the production you have to find a way. So I did and we had our eleven.
Each of our men had up to twenty minutes in which we asked them to perform a pre-prepared comedy speech and then read from an excerpt of the script I'd sent them a few days before. Unfortunately (for them) they were reading with me... I'm no actor but I tried my best whilst Mike directed them.
For those familiar with the audition process it will come as no surprise that it's so much more than the candidate's talent as an actor. As a director Mike needs to feel that he could work well with them, that the way they looked was right and really importantly that they could take direction well.
To this end our eager actors were asked to change accent, adopt a twitch, be glued to the floor and much to my amusement to touch my left knee whilst I tried to avoid all contact.
So we had a mad scientist from Birmingham with quite a severe limp followed by a creepy cockney with a love of innuendo. Needless to say it was a lot of fun and I could quite easily have hired half of them.
But no - there can be only one...
So yesterday I had the difficult task of contacting all those who didn't make the cut. And it really was difficult. That being said one of the guys that wasn't right for us has been recommended for another production which is being cast at the moment in Manchester so fingers crossed he'll be successful with that.
We met some brilliant actors all of whom made us laugh and I'm really hopeful that I'll be able to work with some of them in the future.
And best of all - we have our cast.
