Auditions

A fun (but also slightly nerve racking) aspect to having my work in this festival dealie: I have to cast my play.

The auditions were....weird. 

Not to say that the people auditioning were weird. Not at all--they were all lovely. In a perfect world, I would have been able to make ten casts for my play so that everyone could be included (and then maybe we could all gather in a circle, hold hands, sing Kumbaya and talk about our feelings).

What was weird was being in the position of power... being in the auditioning room, not auditioning but deciding. I had to sit behind the table--with the other six chosen writers-- and watch as each actor came in the room and poured a bit of their souls out for us to judge. We were all looking for something very specific, so we were allowed to make "adjustments" with the actors. This resulted in odd improvisations such as asking them to read their monologues as if they were extremely attracted to somebody, to reading it as if they were God. You can imagine how strange this could get when a girl would come in with a super dramatic monologue about, say, being harassed as a child-- "Alright, that was great, now can you do that same heartbreaking-monologue-that-brought-everyone-to-tears, only this time as if you are a diva on a really awkward first date?"

 "Uhhhh...."

You get the idea.

Regardless, I did enjoy the experience. I loved listening to everyone's audition. It made me appreciate the amount of yet-to-be-discovered talent at my school's theater department. And it especially made me appreciate the casting process. I was sitting at that table for what--three, four hours--and mind you, that was with the aid of snacks and bathroom breaks. It seemed like such a long day--and I'm sure any high school drama director would laugh at my face if I complained about that. 

I felt terrible having to decide which actors to callback and which to cross out. I know what it feels like, because I've been in their shoes so many times. But what it comes down to is finding who might fit the characters that I have created--so all I could do was stay true to that.

I'll go more into the callbacks next time--for now, have a super amazing Thanksgiving! My plans for the break are the following:
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
...and it'll be magnificent.