23rd August 2009 - Some Ideas About Directing Shows #1

Idea Number 1 – Don’t Cast Against Type


This is one of my main rules. If you have someone who is 21 and they are playing someone who is meant to be 40, it doesn’t matter how brilliant your interpretation of the text is, or how brilliant a lighting plot you have, the play is not going to work.This is not the actor's fault wither; it is yours.

The problem is that the audience cannot get over the hurdle of suspension of disbelief. The best you can possibly hope for are comments of the “That was fantastic – and didn’t that young boy do well.” The subtext of this is, of course, “I couldn’t stop thinking about how young that bloke was.”

It’s a mistake I’ve made regularly myself – often because in the world of amateur theatricals there are constraints on the pool of actors that you have. But it is better to cast your net wider. I think that you are better having a cast of actors who look right in the roles than you are having top flight A1 actors who just aren’t quite right. Somehow, you can make the “world” of the play a real one; a world that – with a following wind – you can hopefully lose the audience in for a little while.

There are exceptions to this rule permitted for school and college shows.