Audition Weekend - 14th October 2013

So, we have a cast! I've sat down to write this on the Monday after our auditions weekend and I'm still absolutely exhausted. Alas, without further ado, it gives us all great pleasure to introduce our principles:

Frederic - Alexander Conway

Mabel - Rosie Bowen

Pirate King - Joseph Hand

Samuel - Robin Harris

Ruth - Jenny Samuel

Chief of Police - Pyotr Kurzin

Edith - Alex Blelloch

Kate - Sophie Brent

Isobel - Charlie Rowen

Major-General Stanley - Samuel Williams

The Auditions

Auditions began on the Friday night, with a panel of 6, comprising of Directors Jon and Ian, Musical
Directors Thomas and Katherine, Producer Charli and Choreographer Sarah.

As is the format of LOpSoc auditions, the auditionee sang a song of their choosing, a range test to gauge where their voice lay and some libretto work (monologues, dialogues etc). On the Friday night alone, we had 14 auditions and then beginning on Saturday at midday, we had another 17 auditions, bringing our total to the weekend to 31.

What struck all of us in particular was the standard of auditions, and we all agreed when it came to deciding who we wanted to call back that there wasn't a single bad audition, nor anyone we wouldn't feel totally happy with putting on stage. This was reflected in the fact that of 31 auditions, we had to call back 18 people for consideration.

The Callbacks

We were only able to cast two principle roles off the back of the auditions alone, which means we had to call back 18 people for 9 principle roles. For us as a production team, we wanted to avoid the feeling of 're-auditions'. Hence there was an emphasis on relaxed teamwork and informality about the day.

We hadn't anticipated the high levels of people we'd have to be calling back so there was a bit of an emergency planning meeting the night before which didn't finish until 3am. Probably why we were all a bit highly strung on the Sunday!

We split into two groups with Jon and Sarah taking one group to focus on teamwork and getting to know each other and Ian and Charli taking a more theatrical approach and working on characterisation in order to assess the stage presence of the actors, response to direction et al. During the day, Thomas took individual characters aside in groups of 2 or 3 (depending on how many people we had called back per character), would teach part of a song belonging to that character and then each person would perform the song. This was to see how quickly songs were learnt, how well people put character into their vocals etc.

These sessions ran throughout the day and by about half 4 we had finally finished! It then came to casting...

Casting

There were some characters who we found really easy to cast, and some that we all agreed on from the outset. Unfortunately, there were some characters that we were seriously split on. It meant a lot of discussion and arguments and one of our characters in particular took the best part of 45 minutes to decide on the person we wanted to cast. But, we're happy with our final cast.

Then came the bittersweet task of phoning everyone we had back for callbacks. We all agreed that we would phone people after auditions and callbacks, whether or not the person was successful. After the initial auditions, we phoned everyone either inviting them for callbacks or asking them to be in the chorus, and again after the callbacks we offered parts by phone, just because we felt it was more personal and friendly.

Rhiannon Syndrome

Unfortunately, this round of auditions saw a good few cases of Rhiannon Syndrome. This is where we have auditionees who performed incredibly and we'd have loved to have cast, but there simply wasn't a part for them. And it sucks. Because the auditionees will undoubtedly feel disappointed and like they didn't do well enough, but often, the problem is that they did but there just isn't a character that fits their voice. It actually really upsets us as a Production Team because ultimately, these are often our friends and we have to let them down but it's hard to emphasise how well they did without sounding like we're patronising them! So to everyone who didn't get cast, we're so sorry!

Rehearsals 

So, we start on Tuesday! Everyone is called, we start learning the songs, and it's the start of the hard work everyone'll have to put in, but really, it's the start of the fun!

The Nuffield Theatre

Following the rebranding of the Nuffield Theatre, tickets are now on sale! You can see our listing on the Nuffield Theatre website.

So...

We have a cast. Rehearsals are about to start, the orchestra is almost complete, and in 5 months we'll be on stage in the Nuffield.

From myself, Jon, Ian, Charli, Sarah and Katherine, you guys are awesome, and, we cannot wait to start working with you!

Your Loving MD,
Thomas