Auditions are hard

Over the weekend we held auditions for Affair of the Diamond Necklace. One of our lovely performers is unfortunately unavailable for the remount, so we needed to recast promptly.
It’s the first time I’ve been involved in auditions and it was really quite tricky.
Everyone who auditioned was great and would own the part. I had, in my innocence, thought that auditioning would be about picking someone who was “best”. BZZZZT! No, they were all very good, so the decision was made on much more complex grounds – who had the right look, whose version of the character seemed closer to our goals, who seemed like they’d mesh well with the rest of the cast. Much of it came down to things that I don’t have a vocabulary for, so I was just flailing my hands around talking about how someone had “compatible energy”. (It’s interesting to me how much of the information we use isn’t located in language.)
Anyway, it fell to me to make the decision, and really it was a no-lose situation – all the people we saw would kill in the part – but I tried to find a good process. So I went with my gut, tried to talk myself out of it with my brain, and when I failed to do so, found that the decision was made.
Then came the hardest part, which was phoning the unsuccessful people to tell them they didn’t get it. Thankfully everyone’s professional and they made it very easy on me!
So now we’ve got a full cast again. Rehearsal tonight – looking forward to it!
The Affair of the Diamond Necklace