I agree about worrying less about "wanting" the part and focusing more on simply providing the best characterization (and, in a musical, vocalization) you can.
Also, if you are not cast, remember not to take it personally. Just because someone is a director does not mean he or she is smart about who is a better actor / has sound judgment.
In my single year of working in community theatre, I have performed in three shows and am currently rehearsing two. I have learned / experienced these things...
- Sometimes you won't get cast not because you can't act the part, but because you look too young or too old next to previously cast actors.
- Sometimes a director will put his or her own perspective into a production of a play, going against the playwright's wishes, which can render all the preparing you did before the audition virtually worthless. To avoid this happening, ask a few carefully worded questions of the director via e-mail if you can get in touch prior to auditions.
- A lot of actors will be cast instead of you or in better parts than you not because of talent, but because of their look, demeanor or previous affiliation with the director.
To give an example of the last one, I ended up not being chosen for a part I was more appropriate for that was larger than what I ended up playing. This was a production of "As Bees In Honey Drown" by Douglas Carter Beane. I eventually learned that the (female) director not only was friends with the lead actor, who was not particularly talented, but that in her shows she typically casts men in terms of how good they look. Apparently, she grew up with low self-esteem / weight issues and has a fondness for being superficial with men now that she is in good shape in her 40s.
It was a beautiful production, not because of her thin directing, but because of a marvelous lead actress who I had the pleasure to share two scenes with. After the final performance of the play - the theme of which is that we live in a culture that celebrates surface, not content - my boyfriend overheard our director insisting on pre-casting an audience member, who told her he was not an actor, in her next play; she told him she thought he had "the perfect look."
He was, admittedly, quite handsome. But what I realized right there was that the theme of the play she had just directed was something that had not mattered to / been detected by her.
I also found out, one night before we opened, essential character details for one scene in the play by researching the play online. I found a whole new dimension to one of my characters - I found out I was not playing an inane clothing salesman, but one who was nefarious and accepting bribes. That my director did not communicate this / know it at all proved to me that the little details did not matter to her.
I should say I have nothing against this woman personally. She was otherwise delightful and a fun person to spend time with out of the theatre. In fact, I had a car accident one hour prior to curtain for the final performance, when I had the first line of the show (!), and her first concern was the safety and comfort of me and my boyfriend, who had been in the car with me, when we arrived - after the audience had already been seated. However, to me, she represents a lot of what is wrong in the arts today, and if you enter the world of community theatre you are likely to find traces of her in people you meet. Perhaps they think the little details and actual content don't matter because they believe audiences don't notice those things. I disagree; how can an audience notice those things, or the lack of them, if they are not present in our work to begin with?
If you want to be in theatre for the right reasons, put in the hard work anyway. Interact with people like the director I just described if you need to in order to perform in substantial work and then, when the production is over, move on. Seek out people who are in the theatre for the right reasons and make them your friends and colleagues.
It also will surely strengthen your spirit to read Marian Seldes' "The Bright Lights." It's a beautiful book written by a restless creative spirit who has been in the theatre for the right reasons for over 60 years.
The theatre desperately needs people in it who will raise the creative bar, not lower it. Otherwise community theatre will be nothing but "Cinderella" and "The Sound of Music" in 15 years; a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean.
2010
Feb. 28 - Looped, Feb. 28 - Next to Normal, March 4 - Hair, March 11 - A Little Night Music, March 24 - Time Stands Still, April 6 - La Cage Aux Folles, April 10 - Anyone Can Whistle (City Center), April 10 - Looped, May 9 - Enron, May 15 - A Little Night Music, May 15 - A Behanding In Spokane, May 30 - A Behanding In Spokane, May 30 - A Little Night Music, June 20 - A Little Night Music, June 23 - Red, June 23 - Sondheim on Sondheim, July 13 - A Little Night Music, July 18 - The Grand Manner (Lincoln Center)
