Wednesday 10 July 2013

Casting a Wyrd shadow

Auditions are not easy. For actors or director.....

Last week was both fun and scary. I've been looking forward to the idea of directing again for some time, but doing the auditions is a scary process. What if no-one turns up? What if the people who turn up aren't, put simply, enough, in numbers or measurement of 'good'? What if I muff up the audition process so much that they don't want to take part.

As a result, I arrived at the school hall which is so generously provided to us for free for auditions and rehearsals half an hour earlier than I planned to...and fretted.

I needn't have worried.

Apart from anything else, I had support. Miscriant, who I worked with on her production of Teechers, amongst so many other things, offered to turn up early, and as well as audition, offered to help out backstage. She also offered to come along to the second night of auditions to take the photos you see below. The President of the Canterbury Players, also our set designer, turned up at the first night of auditions to offer support, and, as he admitted, to have a bit of a nose around. Our Chair, who had ended up co-directing the last performance, offered to help out in some way backstage and be there for moral support, and my fellow lighting bod, a good friend who also is an excellent actress, but never gets to act due to requirements of the job, not only offered to be part of the backstage crew, but also to come to auditions to offer support. This did wonders for my confidence.

The secret to auditions is to be fun, informative, simple and ideally, to set the tone for the play so the cast know what they are letting themselves in for. Therefore, these auditions were silly, unstructured outside of the main idea, and encouraged people to let rip - people needed to go in informed. The format for both nights was the same - some people came for both, most did one or the other.

We started with a simple warm up, throwing a stress ball borrowed from work around a circle. Everyone started off by introducing themselves and saying a fact about themselves, then throwing the ball to another person, saying the fact. We have multiple instances of people being double jointed, confessions of being an old bat, webbed feet, knitted hippos (both the knitting of and being the model for the same), and many more.

I then moved on to explain about the play, starting with the Discworld and Terry Pratchett, and finishing with a précis of the plot.

During these early parts of the audition, it is important that the director imposes a sense of order and professionalism on events, to show they know what they are doing, whilst being engaging:


It is vital that at no point you undermine all this by striking a pose like a miming Morris Dancer.....


 Ah well.

I then moved to do a bit of a piece giving me a chance to see how quickly the cast can sketch characters, by asking them just move around the room, having split them into three groups. I then shouted out what character type I wanted each group to be as they moved around the room, and told them to interact as they met each other.


The important thing from this is to see how quickly people can adopt characteristics, play different types of people and interact with each other. I was pleased on both nights to see how much people threw themselves into it. The next few shots are simply people taking instructions like "Be a witch", "Be an actor of the old school", and "Be a fool", and running with them. Sometimes this job is easy, because the people run with it....






Having given the actors a chance to get into the swing of the panto style I am inevitably going to end up directing in (they say you direct like you act if you are an actor focussed director), I got them to line up on opposite sides of the room.




The next exercise gave me a chance to see how well the guys can ad lib (sorry, improvise), form a genuine character and chemistry with another actor and be observed. In turn, each person walked across to their opposite number as whichever character they had most enjoyed being in the previous role, and spend a short time chatting in the middle before moving on. I'm glad my prospective cast had a sense of timing...I was too busy laughing to tell them when to stop and move on, but they seemed to know!!




Finally, I let people get their hand on a script, taken two short scenes and creating a performance of them. This almost inevitably starts with a hasty group casting session and read through of the script....



Pretty quickly, this moves on to starting to put some performance moves and basic blocking....




I gave the groups about 15 minutes to work on the scenes before then showing them to me an each other....this is actually about 5 mins more than is strictly needed, but there was a reason. People start getting creative with the characters, little bit of business and with their moves....




And then, they start getting creative with the props which can be cobbled together from what is in the room, whether it is something to represent a pot of gold, or a practical aid like a lectern:



...one of the school benches turned into the central prop of the scene....


....or, disturbingly, a Jessie (from Toy Story 2) doll to represent a baby!



The auditions were great fun, and on the second night, we ended up being invited to the end of term party for the staff of the school.

I have to say though, despite us attending briefly, I was distracted, already mentally moving bits of paper around to complete the casting. I had contact details, and expressions of interest in particular roles and also people offering to be backstage if they weren't cast, or even if they were.....

It wasn't easy. I decided early on that I would be able to make use of most of the people who had attended auditions or not attended but read separately - this was useful, as I was dreading phone calls or emails turning people down....that said, I would do it if I didn't feel I could use the cast member well, so it says a lot about those who attended that I wouldn't need to do much of that. But then, what roles? How to cast people normally used in leading roles in smaller roles because they would nail the essential job of pushing it forward. Take a risk on a new member, or end up typecasting existing members? What am I doing with the play in terms of tone and feel, as this would affect the casting.

I distracted myself with the 39 steps, a reunion with an old Uni house-mate and former co worker who lives in Australia and was over for a short visit, and the Wimbledon Men's Singles final.I asked one cast member to let me know which of a couple of roles they might be interested in, just to see if it would break the deadlock in my head. And in the process, my subconscious cracked it, and I cast the play. On Monday, all the cast were contacted, and most of them have confirmed they are in for the roles.

There is so much more to do - plan rehearsals, talk set design with the designer (already under way), order scripts, put together backstage crew, including sound and lights and costumes and so so much more. But if it all goes as well as this, all will be well, and very enjoyable.

That, and the ever charming Miscriant, in addition to taking on an acting role, has agreed to come on board as my assistant/co-director.

Top banana.

We're on!


No comments:

Post a Comment