An act and a half of Beauty and the Beast, five hours of callbacks for On The Town and then two more hours of debating about casting - need I say more? Well, I’m going to anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my B&B kids and they deserve the huge crowds and audience adulation they receive, but you try sitting through any show seven times in a row daily. I don’t care what it is or who’s in it! Well, maybe if Audra was in it I could manage, but even after seven nights of her, I’d be saying, “Bring it, girlfriend.”
Worse was our callback. The talent level this year was freakishly high. There are going to be some pissed off kids after casting comes out. The problem, which I guess is a “problem” that any director would love to have, is that there are literally three, four and in some cases five kids that could kick-ass in any one of the several lead roles. Unfortunately, the show is just too big to double cast all the roles and still expect to get up and running in under three weeks.
Our main problem this year is that several kids were obviously campaigning for specific roles. In theory, this isn’t really a problem, except for the fact that the same kids then purposely did a sh*tty job at the callbacks for the roles they didn’t want. Now, I understand these kids are young and inexperienced - and I don’t mean stage experience, I mean life and professional experience. But really? If these kids had any real balls, they’d be honest and just say, “I appreciate you thinking of me for such-and-such, but I’d only like to be considered for so-and-so.” Please, I’ve gone to auditions and specified what roles I’d be interested in. And yes, sometimes I’ve walked away empty-handed, but at least I walked away with integrity and knowledge that the producers/directors can respect me for being up front. And of course, just because YOU think you’d be perfect for something, doesn’t mean you are. If I’ve learned anything from my years of performing and auditioning, it’s that there’s always someone just as talented (and usually better looking and with tighter abs - LOL) just waiting for you to f*ck up - so why f*ck up intentionally?
But alas, we’re not hiring actors for a professional production and these kids are paying to be in our production. But it’s still annoying. We’ve known these kids for years and know their talent and capabilities. It’s quite naïve of them to think they’re fooling us. *Sigh* One day it will bite them in the a*s when this audition “method” backfires and they just don’t get hired at all. Oh well, live and learn.
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