There's something fascinating about sitting in a room with a bunch of people with names that you usually only read about on playbill. Fascinating and intimidating.
Last week I monitored and sat in on the casting sessions for NYTW's production of Peter and the Starcatcher (a prequel to Peter Pan), directed by Roger Rees and Alex Timbers and produced in association with Disney Theatrical. I was fortunate enough to meet both Roger and Alex, and the experience was a little overwhelming, not to mention the countless amazing actors we had come in to read for the production. In case you don't know, Alex Timbers is the director of the current Broadway hit Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Roger Rees has appeared in several Broadway productions and worked with RSC back in the day. Oh yeah, he was also the Sheriff of Rottingham in Robin Hood Men in Tights. Which I find to be hilarious, seeing as how he's actually a fantastic actor and artist.
The process was really quite interesting. I would usually switch off with Ashley (the other artistic/casting intern), one of us would be outside monitoring and the other would be in the room. We'd basically just get the name of the actor coming in, call it out when we bring them in, and then go sit and watch in the corner. And we saw a ton of good actors, many of whom have been on broadway and in mainstream films and several of whom I'd seen in shows before.
On Friday we had our final session of callbacks, after which I was able to sit in the room while they made their final decisions about the casting. It is truly interesting to see what the directors and casting director and Disney folk are looking for and how they make their decisions. Tons of things come in to play, ranging from look to style to skill, and often times some great actors get left out or don't even get called back for reasons completely outside of their control. So you actors I know out there, take that to heart. We passed over tons of great actors, and there are only so many roles to cast. In the end, while I can't yet say who we cast as they haven't been signed to contracts etcetera, I can say that the people who they want for the show are really amazing actors. I can't wait to see this production when it goes up in February.
On another note, I was fortunate enough to have a play I wrote accepted in to the Strawberry One Act Festival at the Riant Theatre in NYC. Which is really exciting. And also daunting.This will be my first real project in NYC, so it has got to be a good one. I'll also be directing the piece, and now I need to put together a team to produce it! Let's see, need a Stage Manager, Sound Designer, Set Designer, Sound/Light Board Op, and naturally a cast of four actors who may or may not to be of vaguely Middle Eastern descent. Some of those jobs I'll just fill myself, but I do know that you can't produce a show by yourself, and so I'll be looking for people to help out on this production. Should be an exciting project.
The play itself is called BROKEN, and has had a single reading done at Cornell College's New Play Festival last year. The show takes place in front of a giant wall, presumably on the border between Palestine and Israel, and explores the issue of honor killings in Palestine and how the presence of an outside force, of being trapped and suppressed within one's own home can truly drive people to the very brink. I really like this play and am extremely excited to finally stage it fully. The show will go up at the beginning of February, so you if you're gonna be in NYC at the time, you definitely ought to check it out. And if you're interested, auditions will be happening sometime in early December. I'll definitely post the notice here, as well as on Facebook and Playbill.
And that's pretty much all for now. Today we have another reading (NYTW does a reading of a new play every Monday, and working on those is a big part of my job), and they sent us changes to the script (which is 160 pages) at 1:30am this morning, and when we got to the office this morning the main copier wasn't working, so we had to print each copy (2800 pages in total) from the dinky office printer. Oh the excitement of working in an office!
And yeah, that's really all for now. Until next time.
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