re: Casting Yourself In Things You Direct? — Page 2

Passing Strange and In The Heights were directed by someone else though, no? I think that's a little different, as they did get outside opinions on it, it wasn't just one person running everything.

Also, like others have said, it's so much more manageable for film than live theatre. On a film set, you can act in a scene solely as the actor, and then watch it from a 3rd person perspective as the director. You don't have the responsibility of performing both roles at the same time, whereas in theatre it definitely would be harder to see the production as a whole if you are always involved in the acting.

Hence, film people who do it have generally been much more successful than those who try the same thing with theatre.

Even when I have directed myself, I have asked people I trust to come in sometimes and take notes for me.

I'm 16. I used to put on shows in the backyard when I was little. Then my ideas got bigger and the later shows were eventually performed on a stage. Most of the time the idea was for me to be the star because I was doing it with my family and they didn't want to actually do it anyway.

The first staged one where I was the star was horrible. I adapted "All About Eve" into a male version with my uncle playing the Margo character and me playing the Eve character. The problem was that in adapting it all I did was scale down EVERY scene of the movie. Needless to say, with all of the different scene changes, it was horrible. It was horribly directed. And because everytime someone would mess up I would make this angry face, my performance wasn't the best either.

The last show I did with the family was my version of "Annie" called "Andy". That time I actually took time to lay out the entire show and it worked very well (except for two diva-ish people who thought they knew what they were doing and did not).

I directed an adapted version of a Christmas movie in my church in the fall of 2006. I was a supporting character and I loved how it turned out, I just hated my choice for a lead. When she read for me she was great, and she claimed she had so much experience, but at the first rehearsal I realized she was crazy and medicated.

I would totally direct and star again and eventually plan to, but I agree with what someone said before, I would totally get an assistant director. I would tell that person what I wanted to see on the stage and have them make sure that was what they were seeing.

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i think it depends on if there is a role that is a good fit for the director. For my shows I direct, design (sets and costume) and usually play a lead. However the method I go for is having my assistant directors weigh in on the right role for me. For example when we were considering doing Reefer Madness (its been put on permanent back burner for the near future) I was hell bent on playing the lecturer, but my staff pointed out that there was a much better candidate and I would be a better fit for Jack.

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I think starring and directing your self is different than writing and acting in something that you write. Starring and directing something you write is never really a good idea because you don't have someone to be objective on your performance, it doesn't matter if you have people come in and take notes, as the director you are going to end up playing the part you have however you see it going. So casting yourself in things your direct, unless it's a small small small role, usually doesn't work out too well, unless you're Tommy Tune, then you'll win a Tony or 9.

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