Ah, the fun of deciding to come right off one of the biggest and most tiring projects you've ever done and overload yourself again immediately.
Gemini CollisionWorks (ie; me and Berit) pretty much have August to ourselves at The Brick, so, as mentioned before, I decided to take advantage of that by putting up a whole bunch of shows, namely
NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed,
NECROPOLIS #0&3: Kiss Me Succubus/At the Mountains of Slumberland, and
The Hobo Got Too High.
Yeah, smart.
I figured as they were all shows I'd done before, and not technical monsters for the most part, no problem. I was also somewhat relying on having more members of the original casts back, for some reason (I only had the vague statements from some people that, yeah, they'd like to do that show again sometime). So there's been more running around to recast than I anticipated. I asked all the original cast members for
World Gone Wrong and
Hobo, and the ones I still thought would be interested from the other two shows, and wound up with less than half the casts for the
NECROPOLIS plays, and three out of four for
Hobo.
(having one of the original actors from
World Gone Wrong marrying one from
Slumberland with many of the other actors from those shows attending the wedding, which is in the middle of our run, or even being in the wedding party I believe, has not helped casting or scheduling either)
So, we sent out a notice on some lists of Glory Bowen's and Edward Einhorn's (thank, guys), and we had auditions these last three days.
MASSIVE SIDELINE HERE: I hate doing auditions. I hate the process, I hate everything about it. So generally I find people I like from within what
Scott Walters and
others are accurately calling "the tribe" and work with them over and over -- some time soon, when I have a moment (HA!) I should talk about The Tribe process of theatre, which is pretty much the model I've been working in for 11 years now, and how it works (and doesn't). One thing I've realized in seeing the posts about this idea is that the most fruitful tribes I've been a part of, as member or as boss (or, what I think is a more accurate term for this position in a tribe, "catalyst"), have all been based around a physical space - a theatre, a group of theatres, or a neighborhood. When the tribe becomes a single theatre company, it tends to turn in on itself and not work as well -- inbreeding produces defects. My old tribe was the one based around the L.E.S. theatres in general and the NADA theatres specifically (1996-2000), and when those lands grew barren, I and others wandered in the wilderness, foraging, until members of the tribe I had once been the catalyst for found themselves at The Brick, let the rest of us know it was a good home, with many trees and sweet water, and gradually we've brought much of the old tribe back together there, and stronger. Still, auditions are necessary to keep the tribe going - but in doing them, talking to the actors as
people not as auditioners, and seeing if their mindset and personality fits the tribe, is as important as how well they can do the part. If so, great, more of us makes us stronger. Anyway . . .
Berit and I were amazed that for the first time in either of our experiences with a somewhat "open call," we didn't have any clunkers. Not a one. Amazing. All good actresses - and I normally have stopped using "actress" as a word distinct from "actor," but there's a point to be made there: I've only seen women thus far, and I still need men. At least three. The ratio of women to men I got from my casting announcement was 30:1. As in only one man actually responded. He wasn't able to make his audition time due to an emergency, and I'm hoping to meet him this afternoon. I have one other man to meet besides that. And, actually, I need one more man on top of that. So, I'm scrambling. What else is new?
But the women are set. I had three women have to drop out of
World Gone Wrong in the last few days due to schedule conflicts, but luckily had good people from the auditions to step right in. So, I've asked six women from the auditions to come in and fill seven roles in three of the plays, and asked one man I know if he'd do another two parts. Three of the women, Jody, Olivia, and Sammy, have signed on. Three haven't yet responded. The guy is still thinking about it. I need at least another three men on top of that, and have only two to see.
{sigh} Great. I'll make it work.
I haven't emailed the other women I saw to tell them "Sorry, no part for you" yet, as I may need them if one of the people I've asked says no. However, from their emails, I know that some of them have been looking at this blog . . . well, if that's you, you were great, but I asked someone else first, and if they say no, you're in.
(I can't stand saying no to actors who were perfectly good for a part, but someone else was just slightly more perfectly good than them -- oh, it drives me nuts!)
And hip hooray, one more actor, Amy, has just emailed after I typed all the above and accepted the hard-to-cast role of Little Nemo in
Slumberland! Well, that makes my day, somewhat.
Amy wants to have a character meeting this afternoon, so I'll try and work that out. When working on this tight a schedule, with pretty much no rehearsals where you can actually get the whole cast together in one place at one time, and very few rehearsals in any case, it's a hugely good idea to have as many individual meetings with the performers where you mostly sit and go over the script line-by-line, moment-by-moment, in great detail.
Yesterday, I spent four hours at The Brick doing this with Jessica Savage, who, like me, is crazy enough to be acting in three of the plays. We talked a lot about
Succubus, blocked her scenes in
WGW and worked them each a little bit, and then worked her scenes for
Hobo in more detail (we blocked that whole show on Saturday with the entire cast, thankfully). Good hard detailed work. And, to my great relief, she was cool about and calmed my anxieties regarding one of the most uncomfortable parts that sometimes comes up as actor-producer-director: saying to an actress you don't know all that well, "Okay, here's the part where we're making out, and later we'll do the part where we're pretending to have sex." Yeah, never comfortable. Having my fiancee in the room taking down blocking may decrease the discomfort however.
Then last night we sat around at Alyssa Simon's talking with her about the world of
Succubus and the character of Lucille in
WGW. And that was work, and worthwhile.
Today, maybe meet with Amy, definitely meet with Aaron, maybe audition another guy. Tonight, try and pin down the people I've asked who haven't answered. Next two days, get the publicity and AEA materials out, set up character meetings with the other new people and then have them, and find the last cast members.
And in the midst of this, I have to pull together and rehearse the two Suzan Lori-Parks 365 Days/Plays pieces I have going up on Saturday and Sunday. Okay. Better go do that now . . .
So, for those interested (those of The Tribe that read this), here are the casts as they stand for the four plays:
NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed (after film noir
) by Ian W. Hill
Ian W. Hill -- BILL, the Fall Guy, a Private Eye
Art Wallace -- CHARLIE, a Traveling Salesman
Gyda Arber -- DOLORES, the Good Girl, Bill's better half
pending -- RACHEL, a Gal Friday, Bill's secretary
Jessica Savage -- AURORA, a Rich Spoiled Nympho
Stacia French -- CHRISTINA, a Femme Fatale
Danny Bowes -- DOMINICK, a Beatnik Bartender
Olivia Baseman -- IDA, a Blowzy Waitress
Aaron Baker -- STEVE, the Long Arm of the Law
uncast -- ARTHUR, a Doomed Man Who Knows Too Much
Yvonne Roen -- KITTY, a Harpy
Iracel Rivero -- THERESA, a Newspaper Reporter
Alyssa Simon -- LUCILLE, a Faded Spitfire, the entertainer
Christiaan Koop -- INGRID, a Magazine Editor, in charge of information
pending -- WILBUR, a Gunsel
Bryan Enk -- JOHNNY, a Flunky
Roger Nasser -- TINY, a Goon
uncast -- LOUIS, a Torpedo
Sammy Tunis -- BRIDGET, a Moll, an angel in the wreckage
Ken Simon -- THOMAS, the Businessman, a gangster
Adam Swiderski -- NED, the Avenger, Bill's partner and dream-doppelganger, another Private Eye
NECROPOLIS #0&3: Kiss Me, Succubus (after Jess Franco, Radley Metzger, et al.)/At the Mountains of Slumberland (after Winsor McCay and H.P. Lovecraft) by Ian W. Hill
Ian W. Hill -- THE DECADENT GENTLEMAN
Alyssa Simon -- HIS WIFE
Jody Christopherson -- HIS MISTRESS
uncast -- HIS GUEST
Stacia French -- THE COUNTESS (THE SUCCUBUS)
uncast -- HER MANSERVANT
Jessica Savage -- HER PROTEGE (THE VENUS IN FURS)
uncast -- THE INCUBUS
Amy Liszka -- LITTLE NEMO
Peter Bean -- RANDOLPH CARTER
Art Wallace -- CMDR. ALFIE BESTER OF THE FLYING SQUAD and CHORUS
Bryan Enk -- CAPT. NEMO and CHORUS
pending -- PICKMAN and CHORUS
Sammy Tunis -- CHORUS
Gyda Arber -- CHORUS
pending -- CHORUS
The Hobo Got Too High by Marc Spitz
Ian W. Hill -- BUG BLOWMONKEY, a troubled young man
Jessica Savage -- SHELLY, a ghost, and NEW-SHELLY (aka MARTHA), a ray of hope
Rasheed Hinds -- MARVIN GAYE, Marvin Gaye
Roger Nasser -- EVERYONE ELSE, many unpleasant people
With any luck, more soon . . .
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