Mixed blessings

You'd think it would be a director's dream to be swamped with choices after a productive round of auditions but it really is a mixed blessing.

I'm coming to the end of a couple of weeks of auditions for Cosi and am now faced with the daunting prospect of selecting a cast from amongst some of the amazing people that auditioned.

Each audition showed promise and potential. A few bristled with unthought of opportunities; I've had to re-evaluate some of my pre-conceptions about how the play might be cast. And some were simply so startling and stunning that they made casting a couple of the roles utterly straightforward.

But some made the task truly, deeply difficult.

Professionally, you're offering work. Most times there's little enough of that to go around and the chances are that you'll be able to pick your ideal actors for the role from a pool of largely known and respected talent.

In community and amateur theatre, you're drawing from a deep well of largely unknown and untapped talent. Sure, you might approach some people and suggest that they audition. But many or most of the people turning up will be a surprise package.

Surprisingly, very pleasantly, for three roles I've had two or more brilliant people audition for each role. I could almost as comfortably have cast any one of the two or three in each role and been confident of a great performance. It's a priviliged and enviable situation. It's enabled me to focus on building balance, symmetry, complexity in the casting.

Several times in the audition process though I was tempted to suggest we change our plans completely and choose another play that would provide an opportunity for more of these people to work together!

But it's not going to happen that way. I will make some tough choices over the next few days and get down to the difficult task of calling all those that auditioned; successful and unsuccessful.

Before I launch into that process, can I just offer, to any of those that came along to audition and might be reading this, my sincere thanks for your time and efforts. You know I enjoyed seeing your work, I hope you might have actually enjoyed the audition!