davis_square | Question about auditions and inclusion

One of the things that Theatre@First has been considering over the past couple of years are ways to be more welcoming and inclusive as an organization, ways to celebrate the diversity within our theatre community, and ways to reach out more vigorously to our entire community.

If you're a local actor, I hope that you already know that we are holding auditions for our March 2012 production of Pride & Prejudice next week. If you didn't know and are interested, please visit our website for more info and to make an appointment.

We work hard to make our auditions as low-stress as possible, given what an inherently stressful situation it is. As the director of this show, I want to do everything I can to encourage interested actors, to help them to give their best performance in auditions, and to communicate that each actor receives my full consideration.

Here are some of the things we're already doing: We try to project a welcoming, supportive environment. We include a section about diversity in our mission statement. We put the readings we'll be using on our website, so that they're not really "cold". We don't ask for resumes or head shots and our audition forms don't ask the actors to give us their age or any information about their appearance. We provide water and snacks. We try to explain our process as much as possible. We have people whose main job at auditions is to mingle with the actors, focusing on the new faces, answering questions, making a personal connection and helping everyone to relax and feel comfortable with us.

A recent article has me thinking about stereotype threat and considering whether there are stereotypes likely to be activated in the audition situation and whether there are ways to mitigate that potential.

If you have any suggestions or perspective to offer, I'm interested in your thoughts.

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A few years ago, I wanted to work as crew for T@F. I went to the website signed up to volunteer and waited... and waited. I eventually ran into some T@F folks at Arisia and told them that I really wanted to work with them. I was given information about the upcoming volunteer day for their current production and I made it a point to attend. I was welcomed warmly and my help was appreciated, but it was very clear that I was "a volunteer" not "crew". I had really wanted to be a part of the team and that just didn't happen.

I've discussed this with a few T@F actors I know and their take has been that crew is usually drawn from those who audition but are not offered roles. Although I've since left the area, I'm still left wondering how someone with no desire to be on stage can become an active part of T@F.

I realize that this is only tangentially related to the question being asked, but I've wanted to get this out there for a while so I grabbed my chance.

Sorry, I deleted my post because I realized there was some atrocious spelling. I didn't notice that there was already a reply.

I've wanted to get this out there for a while so I grabbed my chance.

I'm glad that you did. I'm very sorry that was your experience. The only explanation I can offer is that someone dropped the ball, possibly me. You did all the right things. I'm bummed that you've left the area, because that makes it hard for us to make it right with you, but I will make sure that this becomes a cautionary tale for our Technical Directors and Producers.

It is not the case that our tech crew is drawn from non-cast actors. It is sometimes the case that people who have not been cast find an offstage niche on the show, but we've usually recruited much of our crew before auditions happen. Sometimes it does take a show or two before people find their niche, but we try to do a better job than you describe at integrating interested volunteers into the process.

If someone else reading this is interested in working crew on P&P, the best thing to do is to email tech at theatreatfirst dot org, introduce yourself and let us know how you'd like to get involved. If you're less of a techie, more of an administrative type, then info at theatreatfirst is the better bet. Or you can email me at this username and I'll see that the right connections are made.

As someone who's had to recruit crew in the past, I think the problem you're encountering is that we're not strong on centralized, non-show-specific communications -- so if you're not volunteering to someone in charge of crew for a specific show, the information that you exist may not end up getting propagated to the person who will be recruiting two months from now. My impression is that auditioners are a source, but not the main one, of crew. But producers/directors end up networking for crew, which means they often end up recruiting people known to them or someone close to them--not because we wouldn't love new recruits, but because we haven't asked the right person to lead us to the new people. The group is still working on between-shows infrastructure, in general; part if still being a relatively young, volunteer-run group.

This has certainly been true over the years but is no longer the case. We now have a centralized volunteer list of people who have written in asking to volunteer, what things they'd like to help with and how they have asked that we reach them. We have reached out to all of the people on the list and are working on ways to meet them (if they are new) and encourage their participation. With the help of this list we found a variety of new crew from Producers to Stage Managers.

I would encourage people interested in volunteering to write to tech AT theatreatfirst DOT org.

Hooray! (I should have added the caveat to my original comment, that the last time I looked for crew for a full-scale show was several years ago, which in the life of a group that's just coming up on a decade old, is like forever...I still think of it as recent, but it wasn't, really.)

I am so sorry this happened. Thank you very much for bringing it up! I am happy to report that we are making progress to make sure it doesn't happen again. The tech coordinator has started a google doc with names and areas of interest/experience of anyone who volunteers, and is sharing it with producers to help them fill positions, and to be sure folks who are willing get called on to help.

I'm sorry this happened to you! Like you, I've had no desire to ever appear on stage--I managed to get a crew position in my first show because I was friends with the festival director, who gave my name to the Tech Director... it was a fortuitous bit of networking. I can see that it could be hard without that "in."

When I've TD'd and produced in the past, I've tried to keep in contact with auditioners who expressed interest in crew/house positions. As

lillibet noted below, most of the crew positions are filled even before auditions, so I think I didn't feel a need to expand the search for crew.

I did run into a situation earlier this year when I was trying to find a substitute for a crew member, so I posted on the Theatre@First LJ and Facebook page and to our mailing list--it didn't occur to me to try the DSLJ. If you're not subscribed to those, I'd recommend doing that, especially the
mailing list (http://www.theatreatfirst.org/mailinglist.shtml)--it's a good way to keep up to date on T@F happenings and even other theatre projects in the area, some of which also sometimes are asking for crewmembers. We try not to be spammy.

You know somebody who knows somebody. How else could it work, really? :)

Question about auditions and inclusion

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