Question about auditions and inclusion

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's what I'm asking about, what goes into deciding what makes someone the "best choice" for the role. I've seen this come up in LARP, for instance, and it can get messy because while some GMs are open to casting people according to the gender(s) with which they identify (or cross-casting), others are against it, and that becomes discriminatory.

So, I'm reading from your response here that Theatre@First does not have a non-discrimination policy that covers this specifically, and it is left entirely up to the individual casting directors?

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Since theatre is a artistic endeavor, it's a very subjective process. I sit in on other directors auditions and have learned to be fascinated, rather than appalled, as they make choices that I would never make. They see things that I don't, and vice versa. As an organization we welcome volunteers on a non-discriminatory basis, but whether and what roles an actor is cast in is at the sole discretion of the individual show directors. If you have thoughts on how it could be otherwise, I'd be interested in having that conversation--feel free to email me at this username.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I am a T@F/PMRP actor and cis-female who has been cast in male roles (which I played as male -- we didn't change the character's gender) multiple times without being able to pass at all. I like to believe that I won the roles because of choices I made in gesticulation, posture, carriage and use of voice --- whatever the reason I landed the roles, it certainly wasn't for the way I looked. I'm not an isolated case.

Every audition form I've ever filled out for T@F asked me what gender(s) I would be willing to play without asking my own gender. (The very first one may have, but that was 8 years ago and I don't remember. I got a male role, though :-))

I hope you'll audition if you want to.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I think they do have a general policy that covers this specifically, in that I just pulled this from their website:

The mission of Theatre@First is to work together to provide a fun, friendly, and creative theater experience for cast, crew, and audience alike. We welcome volunteers at all levels of experience, without regard to race, color, religion, ethnicity, ancestry, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, national origin, body type, age or disability.

As a theater group, I think they do at least try to openly address about this question. Does the wording of that statement address the question well, or does it fall short? I'm sure they would want to know if it did fall short.

That said, yes, a policy statement is one thing, and what happens when people are doing the casting can be another, and I think lillibet's answer is more nuanced and in depth about the actual casting process.