So someone asked me the other day who all auditioned for the play. (This was a person who had not auditioned and had no real vested interest beyond curiosity.) I gave this person the list. “Oh, well you’d have a difficult time convincing an audience that these two are related,” said the person about two actors I was considering—but hadn’t told this person—for father and son. “No way an audience could suspend their disbelief with that relationship.”
Really? That threw me back to second guessing. I’m always wondering if the audience will buy it? Of course, that’s the whole challenge of casting, isn’t it: getting people in there who can convince an audience of a desired truth.
Well, we cast a few 50+ year olds as 80+ year old women in HE HELD ME GRAND…and I think the audience bought it completely. In fact, few people cast in this show were the same age as the characters: most were 20 or more years younger. We did cast appropriate to gender and race in this show. But look at HAIRSPRAY: since the original movie, most productions cast a male as the girl’s heavy-set mother. When I just saw it in Williamsport—a terrific production by the way—the high school kid who played the mother was not only decades younger than the character, but also about 150 pounds lighter, and a guy! And the audience bought it.
Mike Crum has always encouraged me in musicals to cast the best actor…not the best singer. I have generally followed his advice: a good actor can carry a role whether their singing voice is the strongest or not. Of course you wouldn’t cast a tone-deaf person to sing one of those main roles in LES MIS, but…well, maybe so! A good actor can do just about anything.
I just found out this morning that one of the actors I have been leaning toward has a medical issue that might prohibit them from participating. Back to the drawing boards….
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