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

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I think you should provide an anonymous way of giving this feedback, because the last thing many people want is to look like they are whining about not being cast when they have concerns about the fact they are not being cast. Not 'anyone can email me' unless you are never going to direct or act again (ie, you are not going to be responsible for that person not getting a role because you made the decision or competed for the role), I mean a genuine anonymous option.

I have genuine concerns about the fact I have *never* been cast in a T@F production. And there are real reasons why I have not been cast; I am well aware my morbid obesity makes it harder to cast me, even in a group that does have a lot of larger women. It is harder to balance me, especially on the small stages T@F uses. But I have been in 20 plays between 1985 and 2005 in 4 cities in 2 countries. 2 of them were paid. I have auditioned for T@F about 20 times in the past 6 years, so maybe 150 roles? Have I genuinely been bad for every single one of them? I certainly cannot act everything, but I can act.

If this had been a limited thing, or if I even got a non-speaking role or some other sinecure role, it would not concern me. But it has been going on long enough and consistently enough. I have nailed a couple auditions, and been told so by other actors.

It does not even need to be a case of every director having issues; if half of the directors don't cast me because I am wrong for their parts, and half the directors don't cast me because of the obesity, the end result is the same. But if even one of them does not cast me because of the obesity, you wind up with the same meritocracy fail. I do not know what to do about that.

There are unimportant reasons why I feel safe saying that at this point, but that is not actually my point. Having said that, I will not audition for T@F again, certainly not in the near future - because if I were cast, I would feel it would be a sympathy casting. So I feel ok opening this as a dialogue. But I cannot see how anyone who had not reached that point would be willing to tell you the problems that you feel might exist and how they affect them, without anonymity.

Unless you come up with a way of providing this info anonymously, you are not likely to get feedback, except from people who no longer care about their chances auditioning for T@F.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

I second this suggestion.

[ron_newman]

Perhaps - temporarily allow anonymous comments at theatreatfirst for a few days, repost this there, and link to it from here?

(I don't think there is any way for me as a davis_square mod to turn on allowing anon comments for a single post such as this one)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

theatreatfirst is already set up to accept anonymous comments (with a Captcha), so this could happen.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I have created a post (http://theatreatfirst.livejournal.com/140543.html) in the Theatre@First community. Anonymous comments are enabled, but must be unscreened.