Casting Aspersions: The Audition

They say that most people's greatest fear is not the fear of death, but the fear of appearing before an audience. This week, I braced myself for a fate worse than death, confronting my fears at Harvard's semi-annual crash course in stage fright: the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) Common Casting Week auditions.

Fortunately, I was not alone, as several hundred other student actors and would-be actors descended in swarms upon the Loeb and Agassiz theaters to audition for an unprecedented 44 plays in the largest Common Casting Week in HRDC history.

Besides a funeral procession, Common Casting Week is probably the only event where you can find hundreds of people dressed in black, emoting their hearts out.

Tonight is Wednesday, February 4. It is only the second night of this four-day orgy, but according to HRDC Campus Liaison and Common Casting Week Coordinator Erik J. Salovaara '88, 500 to 600 actors have already stormed the two theaters to compete for a handful of choice parts.

The actors range from nervous novices to jovial, seasoned veterans. Rookie Bob J. Toner '89 says the audition process is "nerve-wracking," although he says that the directors he has auditioned for so far have been "pretty cool." Still, he says he finds himself at a disadvantage competing against the more experienced actors.

One such actor is Daniel L. Zelman '89, who says that the process is "annoying" at first, but becomes "generally easier," the more one auditions. Nevertheless, he says, "The nervousness never goes completely away."

The plays themselves--which Salovaara says have quadrupled in number over the past three years--run the gamut from the familiar to the never before seen. The HRDC famed trinity of Shakespeare, Shepard, and Stoppard is well-represented, as are the ranks of plays that have become movies, such as "Betrayal", "Deathtrap", "The Philadelphia Story", and "The Diary of (Not Cleared) Frank". There are also several more experimental works, including a few student-written plays. Judging by the sign-up sheets, the better-known plays attract the most actors.

I run up the stairs of the Loeb, looking for the sign-up table, where most of the action is. I ignore the two men sitting on the steps. The table is not upstairs. On my way back downstairs, a woman asks me, "Did you see him? It's Ken Howard! That's him sitting on the step." Ken Howard is a TV and movie star who is now acting with the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb. He is someone whose face I would have recognized, had I been paying attention. He is gone now.

Salovaara is in the midst of the action, standing on the sign-up table in the lobby of the Loeb, while hordes of shouting thespians wave their arms about his legs, grasping for pens and audition forms. He has long since given out all 750 copies of the event's "bible", the appropriately titled "Common Casting Week" booklet, which contains pertinent information about each show.

Nick P. Davis '87, a veteran of many Common Casting Weeks, says that he has never seen such a crowd at Common Casting Week before. The week provides a large "capacity for madhousedom," he says. He adds, though, that he thinks that everything is running especially smoothly this year, even more so than in previous years, since the HRDC has moved the event from a small room on the second floor of the Loeb to the more spacious lobby and has made the booklet more organized.

Still, there are problems. The wait for some plays is hours long, and space is cramped; some auditions are being held in stairwells.

The Agassiz lobby isn't nearly as spacious as the Loeb's, but there is no other place in the Agassiz to hold the event. I step carefully over the legs of lounging actors toward the table. A friendly but frazzled HRDC official explains the procedure to me. I am to sign up to audition for as many plays as I like. For each one, I will be given an audition form to fill out and a reading to prepare. When my turn comes, a "runner" will escort me and perhaps one or two others to another room to read the part in front of the director and the producer.

Unlike the other actors, some of whom are auditioning for as many as 11 plays, I choose only one play. I choose it because it has the shortest waiting list.

The audition from is daunting, especially since for each question that asks if I have any experience or special skills or talents, I am forced to fill the vast white space that follows with a single "No."

Other questions seem downright strange. The most bizarre reads: "What do you feel is the most essential quality for a fictional character to possess in order to establish contact with an audience?" Alarmed to discover that final exams are not over, I muddle through the form, read through the excerpt from the play, and anxiously await my turn.

HRDC Publicity Coordinator Marjorie B. Ingall '89 has been standing behind the table in the Loeb lobby, shouting out actors' names, for two hours now. She will continue to do so for four more hours tonight. "The stress is so much," she says, "that I am indulging in an extra half a packet of Sweet 'n' Low in my coffee." Salovaara has already lost track of how many cups of coffee he has purchased for his crew tonight.

Equally busy are the "runners," who save time for their directors by fetching the actors. They often serve as stage manager for the show, says veteran runner Sophfronia M. Scott '88, the stage manager/runner for Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night.

The directors and producers run on a tight schedule, seeing new faces every five minutes. Many, such as "Philadelphia Story" Director Rachel Pulido '89 and Producer Sarah V. Kerr '89, share the actors' anxiety, as they must choose 15 actors from the hundreds they will see this week. They combat their anxiety by "passing crib notes," says Pulido.

The moment of truth arrives. A runner leads another novice and me into a room with a booming echo, from which the whole building is likely to hear me. I try to act blase before the other actor and the director, who in a friendly manner explains what the play is about and what is happening in the scene we are to read from. He asks the dreaded question: "Which of you would like to go first?"

Terror strikes us both. He offers to go first. I let him, hoping I can study his reading and improve upon it. But my turn comes, and I am sure my reading is just as bad, only I stumble in different places. The director, of course, compliments us both. The entire ordeal lasts less than five minutes.

Thus, I survived the test of fear known as Common Casting Week, but the anxiety persists, at least until Tuesday, February 10, when cast lists go up. For me, it would be almost a relief not to be cast; at least I wouldn't have to face stage fright again.