
Celebrated theater casting directors shared valuable insights with performers during a recent SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations on Broadway interview. They shared worthwhile advice about actor tapes, what gets lost in the self tape audition process, and their perspective on one-line roles. Here are some highlights from the discussion:
Grab someone in the first ten seconds of your self tape
Erica Hart has been casting for over a decade and is known for her Broadway debut Chicken & Biscuits (2021), as well as her work on the HBO Max series That Damn Michael Che.
When it comes to self tapes, her advice to actors starts with the basics: “We need to hear you, and we need to see you.” She doesn’t want performers to feel pressure to go out and start purchasing expensive equipment, but urges talent to prioritize finding a quiet, well-lit space as much as possible. And when it comes to audition tapes specifically for theater, she encourages hopefuls to stand before the camera as it engages the body even without moving around.
When it comes to the performance, Hart insists, “Always think of the fact that you need to grab somebody in the first ten seconds … You’re like, ‘Well, Erica, I don’t have the first line.’ Great. How are you listening? Yeah. That’s the most important thing for me is how are you reacting to the acting that is happening?”
Hart explains the practical reason why the first ten seconds are crucial: “So you have to catch us in the first ten seconds because the people who have that final say—the people who we’re sending it off to—they might have a location scout they have to go to that day; they might have a makeup consultant to go to that day; they might have a meeting with the general manager—all of this stuff … They’re watching it in the van! So they might have five characters and a link of 50 people to watch that they have to watch in ten minutes. So if you don’t catch them in the first ten seconds, it’s not that they don’t want to watch your full tape, they just can’t.”
And finally, Hart shares a self tape nugget of wisdom. “If you’re done with your self tape and you’re ready to send it off, always ask the question, ‘Will they get this self tape—this performance—anywhere else in the world?’ If the answer is ‘no,’ then good, go to sleep, night night. But if the answer is ‘yes,’ maybe try to do it again.”
Direction is at risk of being put on the back burner
While the shift from in-person to self-taped auditions has advantages, such as convenience and accessibility, it also comes with its drawbacks. With over 30 years of casting experience and an endless list of casting accolades, Hamilton and In the Heights casting director Bernard Telsey reveals, “I find the challenging [part] is how we then work with our creative teams, because we all know people are better in the room; you get a better sense of who the human is that you don’t get on the tape.” Telsey finds himself constantly having to remind the creative teams to remember what is lost with self tapes—namely, direction.
He explains: “[The self tape] cuts out what we call direction, right? …Especially coming from the theater, we always did pre-screens in person, because you had to. So we’re all trained and used to giving adjustments. I’m not calling myself a director, but as a casting director we’re giving adjustments; we’re helping people make the best tape possible. And that process isn’t necessarily happening. We know how to see past that, you know what I mean? But our teams don’t. So that’s been a challenge of how we get them to not try to cast the job from the tape we send them. Just see who you want to meet in person or on Zoom.”
Telsey finds he wants to talk to the creative team before he sends them the tapes to give his insights about the talent, including which actors give consistently strong performances in comparison to a quality take that took the actor dozens upon dozens of takes to achieve.
Never underestimate one-line roles
Telsey encourages talent to think big when it comes to one-line parts. He says, “You have to look at it like it’s the most fun. I mean, I know it’s not but it’s like ‘This should be the most fun audition, and I’m going to make up something.’ Because you know you all brilliantly did that in acting school or not acting school or when you get cast in something, you’re doing the backstory, you’re deciding if they had a bad night’s sleep, a good night’s sleep. All of that stuff needs to go in rather than you look at [the script] and go, ‘Oh, anyone can do this; they don’t want me.’” By making grounded choices, a one-liner can lead to more opportunities, which he’s seen time and time again.
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