A Hard Part

So I had 12 people in a room on 30th Street read for me for 10 parts in Havel's Temptation yesterday. I have another 2 people to read tomorrow on their own. So, 4 of them won't get cast, though they're all fully capable of doing the roles excellently.

It's all about the balance.

There's about three or four different ways of casting the show from the people I saw. I guess three fully different ones and one slight variant of one of the three (flipping two actors in their respective parts). After consideration, I have my favorite group, but I have to start asking people one at a time, starting with certain parts, if they want to/can do the show. If certain people say no, it throws the whole thing out of whack and I have to go to one of the other line-ups.

I had 9 of the actors who came in rotate around reading Scene 5, which features 8 of the characters, in various configurations. Got fairly sick of the scene, but got to see what I wanted from everybody in different aspects. Saw several things that surprised me about several people. I'm probably going to go with at least one person in a part I hadn't really been considering them for, and was just having them read of of convienience, but which they wound up knocking out of the ballpark.

The 1 other actor who came in, that I didn't read in that scene, is really only available for one part in the show, so I read him for that part in another (2-character) scene, with several different people opposite. Then I did one last 2-person scene where the balance of actors is crucial.

So I saw what I wanted. Though, yeah, could go so many ways. Usually Berit and I are on the same page about almost anything, but later that night, when I brought up one part that I had really been looking at three actors for, I asked her, "What do you think, A or B?" - thinking the choice was obviously between those very different, very good actors. "Really?" she said, "I was thinking C." So . . . we talked for a while about the whys and hows of where it should go.

I'm more and more excited though - seeing these good actors doing this script. Most of what they were doing was all wrong, tonally -- it was a cold reading after all, I didn't expect it any other way -- but I could see and hear them doing it the right way, and I felt I knew how to get them there.

And still -- I have two people to see tomorrow. And that could change everything.

We open November 2. This seems like an eternity for me.

Blogroll Redux

So a bit over a month ago, I shared my blogroll in a post, as I can't do it in the LiveJournal format I prefer otherwise for my posts.

Adam Szymkowicz wondered in a comment if it was actually possible to keep on top of all those (nearly 200) blogs.  I confidently said that with Bloglines, no problem.

Then, I guess, there got to be more news or posts or something, because it did turn out to be impossible to keep on top of all those blogs.

So I whittled them down, and still added new ones (just a lot fewer heavy news text blogs that all repeat the same info).  I'll keep sharing them once a month as I find new, interesting sites and drop old repetitive ones.  I'm keeping my roll to 150 sites, tops, and if I add one, I have to find one to drop. 

I regret that I didn't do this while the humor album site entitled Milton Berle's Cock was still up and running.  It was a great site for finding downloads of out-of-print comedy albums, but had to shut down due to troll interference (and, best of all, looked great in the middle of the blogroll).   There are now a while bunch of out-of-print music sites in here that weren't before; anyone searching for interesting obscure cues for your shows, go nuts, but be warned, it's a bottomless pit of sonic possibilities.

( 150 Blogs of Interest Inside )