About two weeks ago, I finally had my auditions for Scrooge Macbeth. It was not at all like I expected; I had known a few people I was getting out to my auditions for sure, and assumed besides that that interest would be low. It is not a well-known show. I am not a KWLT staple everyone wants to work with. Honestly, I was just relieved that I knew enough men who were auditioning that I didn’t have to worry about that (community theatre problems!)

And then…then there were 34 people who auditioned for me. To put that in perspective, I was busy for nearly the entire 9 hours of audition time we had (spread over 3 nights). Or, another perspective: our biggest, most hyped show last season had only 10 more people than I did audition (for a cast that was 10 people more than mine as well). Needless to say, I had some very difficult decisions to make.

I was fairly naive about the artistic process in general (and would say that I still am in many ways). I kind of expected that when the “right” person auditioned, that I would “just know” which role they would be perfect for, and that all other auditions would pale in comparison and decisions would be easy.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

To be honest, I don’t know why I expected that; I have been involved in many auditions as stage manager, and have never seen a decision process work like that. Sure, sometimes you get that with a particular role and a particular person, but that is often more a result of not getting many people out to audition than it is “fate.” For Scrooge Macbeth, there was not a single role I had that I “automatically” cast. I had 34 auditions and 8 roles, and could have come up with 34-choose-8 fantastic casts.

Luckily it did not take us very long to cast the show; I knew I could have agonized over the decision endlessly (and kind of did internally), so I made my decisions and stuck with them. I intensely questioned the decisions right up until our first rehearsal, and that’s where I discovered that my decisions were fantastic ones. Who knows or cares if it was the “optimal” one out of the auditions, whatever that would mean – it is going to be an amazing show with amazing people and you will be punched in the face by fun, I promise!