Casting a play is never easy. I must go through a dozen variations before I commit to one. After the auditions wind down around 8pm or so, I sat in my office and looked all al of the paper forms – – working to place the forms into a dozen different piles. I marked on the individual papers a column of what was working for the actor and where my concerns were – – I am hoping that these forms never get the actual hands of the actors. They might be a bit confused or disheartened by how my shorthand reads. I take my very best possible collection of possibilities in my briefcase – leaving at work only those that don’t clearly fit the mission. When I get home it’s always a full dinner and a good shower before I sit down and assemble THE paper. I randomly flip through the script and let it flip open to a random scene and then I look at my proposed list. Then I flip to another random page check it against the list – then another random page – and on and on. Once I get to the best list possible, I take all of those other forms that will soon be tucked away – and here is the hard part – I try to see if there is anyway that one of these in the backup pile would be a mistake to ignore. This is the hard part. This is the part of making choice and facing the consequences of those choices. The evening is then done. I do spend a bit of time choosing the font and color and layout for the casting notice. It does, somehow, help me clear my mind to get to bed.
All of this must seem crazy to those who down’t walk high school theatre halls. After all it s just a piece of paper with a few names on it for an event that is going to fill a 100 minutes for a handful of days in the spring – – but tonight – – in my world, this is a mighty big deal.