CHAPTER IV

CHOOSING THE PLAYERS

The Process of Casting

The process of choosing the players is called "casting." The problem is to find the person in the group best fitted by mental and physical equipment to play each part. This is referred to in the professional theater as finding the "type." Sometimes, in schools, the authorities have a feeling that persons of the reverse type should be chosen, because of the educational value that lies in the student's playing a part that takes him out of himself. Thus, a bashful boy will be chosen to play the braggart, or a forward girl for the timid country cousin. Whether or not this theory is true is perhaps open to question; but for public performances, casting by types seems the more logical method. It simplifies tremendously the labor of the director, and it makes for better performances. And children, like most other people, usually like best to play those rôles for which they seem best fitted.1

Method of Casting

In amateur groups, where there is a permanent director, he will naturally do the casting, with more or less

1 For a discussion of the question of casting for educational purposes see Emma Sheridan Frye, Educational Dramatics, (Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1913), and A. M. Herts, Children's Educational Theater (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1911).

aid from other members of the group. There are several possible methods.

1. Tryouts.-Tryouts, which seem most democratic at first glance, consist of competitive reading for parts in the chosen play. If the play is unfamiliar, copies of it may be left in some generally accessible place-the greenroom, or the library. At definite given times candidates may appear before the director and his assistants, and interpret the rôles they wish to play.

2. Interviews.-Some directors, however, feel that competitive tryouts are very poor tests because the candidates are under such a strain. They prefer to have informal conversations with the candidates, so that they can better judge how they speak and act under more normal conditions.

3. Past Experience. The past experience of the actors, according to other directors, is the only test for candidates. All new actors should be put in very minor parts, until they have showed ability.

Best Method

Probably some combination system is best. Old actors of the organization who have proved themselves may be cast for the parts for which they are obviously fitted, while some sort of tryout system will give newcomers a chance to prove their abilities. To cast entirely by tryouts is not wise, as a rule, for the director learns much about the ability of an actor from having coached him in a play, and this should be taken into consideration. Character, willingness to coöperate, reliability, and so forth, are all very important

things that cannot be learned by tryouts. Moreover, there are persons who read a part well, but who never get very much better than they are the first time. They do not work up in the rôle. Many a person who reads badly, and who makes a poor first impression, may ultimately play a character better than a person who reads well.

For all these reasons, an actor should never be allowed to feel that a character has been definitely "given" to him. Shifts during the early rehearsals are often necessary. The amateur actor must know that if some one appears who can play his part better than he can, or if he does not work into the rôle properly, he will be dropped, just as would be the case if he were playing on a football or baseball team. Some system of understudies, second-choice actors for important parts, is helpful in emphasizing the idea that the process of working up a play is a competitive one for the actors. Some Special Considerations

In casting, each actor must be considered in his relations with the other actors, as well as in regard to his individual fitness for the part. Two persons who are going to appear together constantly, the hero and heroine, for example, must not only have voices that are pleasing in themselves, but voices that fit well together. Two persons of similar type-for instance two old men-must have dissimilar voices, so that they can easily be distinguished from one another. In the same way, physical characteristics must be considered. Lovers should not be two extremes in height, and yet

the man is usually larger than the woman. An interesting example of what may be done by skillful casting is Mary Pickford's moving picture version of "Little Lord Fauntleroy." In that picture, Miss Pickford played the part of Little Lord Fauntleroy, and also the part of his mother. The two characters rarely appeared on the screen together. In the scenes where she was the little boy, the other actors were all unusually large, and thus the star was dwarfed to proper boy size. When Miss Pickford played the mother, however, the other characters were smaller than normal, and thus she herself appeared much larger. In the rôle of the mother she appeared to be two feet taller than she appeared in the part of the son.

When women are to play the rôles of men both their size and their voices must receive special consideration. They must, as a rule, be considerably larger than the women in the cast, and their voices should have less range. Women who normally talk in a monotone, give the best illusion as men. When men are to play the parts of women, the younger they are the better. Boys of twelve to fifteen are usually very successful in playing women's rôles. All Shakespeare's women characters were written to be played by boys of this age, and Shakespeare never saw his parts played by any other sort of actresses. An older man can very rarely give any sort of an illusion. The parts of old women and comic characters, as the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet,' may be played by older men, and with much success. In fact, Molière, although he had women actresses in his company, sometimes indicates that men comedians

are to play the broadly comic women characters in his plays.

One thing that should not be neglected in casting, as in all the other activities in the process of amateur dramatics, is the carrying over of the experience of one performance into the next—and that is why a system of tryouts alone is unwise. Actors should receive credit for good work, and their abilities should give them special considerations in casting a new play. This implies a person who is permanently in charge of casting. Naturally, in a Little Theater, he will be the director, and in a school or college organization he will be the faculty director. Organizations which constantly change directors, or which hire different directors for each performance, should devise some scheme to give permanence and unity to this feature of the work. A casting committee is, perhaps, the most common solution. The Theater Guild of New York, for example, has a number of persons who direct their different performances, but the casting is done by the general director, who thus carries on the experience of the group. Most professional producers have a permanent casting secretary. The director of any individual performance should, however, be free to make whatever changes in the cast seem necessary to him, for the ultimate and only true test for casting is the abilities the actors show in playing together in the specific play that is being produced.