Tonight is callbacks for the play – and I am confused. It was easy for me to separate those that were able to personalize the story and courageous enough to pause and be in communion with their acting partner. I got that done. Now the job comes to take a number of 132 auditions down to a workable 20 or so. With 9 roles to cast, I would ideally like to callback 18 people and would worry if I found it necessary to call back more than 27 people. The extremes worry me, because if I call back too few actors then I really may get stuck when I start to pair them off in family units. If I call back too many actors I worry that I haven’t planned and thought through the play enough to know what I am looking for – – so much rests on that magic number.
Then the plan for callbacks: I need to make sure that all that are called back are eager and passionate about telling the story. That is usually no problem. Plan two for callbacks is take the choices I find most obvious at the audition and test those choice by trying all I can do to NOT cast them. I know this sounds quite mean and rather counter-intuitive, but if they become the best choice after efforts have been made to cast others – then they stand a pretty clear choice in my mind. Step three: I work to provide the most unlikely pairings to read. I offer the actor a partner they would never expect. I find it best to see the individual actors and their quirkiness if they are working in a total foreign land. Actors read unique only when they in contrast to their partner. They rise to the surface. I get to see the actor without them having any safety net of predictability. Step 4: I like to put them in situations in which I impose moments of silence with the scene. I work to see if an actor is able to stay part of the scene without dialogue. Some actors are unable and quickly fall out of connection. Some actors tolerate the silence but do not move beyond it. Some actors work and thrive in the silence. That’s a good thing. I like that. Step five – this now with a much smaller group of people and particularly in a realistic drama, I ask for or sometimes impose touch as part of the audition. The touch can be as simple as a hug, pat on the back, or a shaking of hands. This touch, like silence, test the actor’s wiliness to enter the land of communion. Then – and only then – at the very end of the day. I open my eyes and see them and pair them and deal with their look. This is certainly WAY down the list – because I do all I can to cast talent over type. But all things equal, It nice to have some verisimilitude in stage pictures. EEECHS. This will take an extra hot batch of coffee in my newly purchased and much prized Yeti thermos.