The cast list an essential part of your script. With the winner of our Breaking Boundaries competition ready to be announced later today, and our latest general competition still running, now is a good moment to look at this often overlooked part of your writing. As a writer, you must always remember that some poor bloody producer/director/casting director must pick up your words and turn them into something that works on screen, stage or radio. That doesn’t start with the title. It doesn’t start with the first line, or even with the pitch. It starts with the cast list.
Why are cast lists important?
When your producing, or both directing and producing, the major part of your job is logistics.
I’ll have actors who I owe a favour and have promised to cast in something good, and actors who are in town for a limited period and I want to cast while they’re available. I have to get a group of people together who can do a good job, work well together, and, most of all, be there on all the dates I need. None of this is easy.
So, from the very moment I’m looking at your script I’m thinking “who can I get to play these parts”, because if I can’t get anyone, or its too difficult to cast, then it ‘aint happening. On the other hand, if you’ve cast a part that is perfect for someone I have available right this instant I’ll bend over backwards to make things work. Theatre is about relationships, and a good cast list helps me see what relationships I’ll need to build to make your play work.
So, what can you do to make your cast list work?
Well, first, and this will sound stupid to some of you, but PUT A BLOODY CAST LIST IN YOUR SCRIPT. You wouldn’t believe how many writers simple don’t bother. As a producer, I will at any given moment have a couple of hundred scripts sitting round from people who want me to record my play. I’m not going to waste my time reading a play that doesn’t have a cast list.
This isn’t me being lazy. It’s me knowing that if you’re too lazy to put a cast list in your script, you’re too lazy to write a good script. Writing is 90% sweat, grind and effort. So, thank you all those writers who didn’t bother. You saved me the effort of finding out the hard way that you just haven’t earned it yet (baby). (Yes, I know Morrisey has apparently gone insane, but that doesn’t change how important he was to my adolescence!)
Give me age and gender
Voices change with age. This can be a difficult conversation with some actors, but particularly on radio, you can’t cast a twenty-year-old as a seventy-five-year-old. There’s lots of flex, especially around the middle ages, but young people sound young and old people sound old. Life sucks.
So, you need to start with Steve (Male, 20’s), or something like that.
Gender should be obvious but here are a couple of things to look out for. First, can that policeman be a policewoman? There are legions of female actors out there ready to kill for a part which isn’t “first girlfriend” or “midwife” or “brutal murder victim.” I’ve managed to get some top female actors to come act for free just because the part was something they’d never had the chance to do before.
Second, we live in an age that finally acknowledges (to an extent) gender fluidity and trans rights. This leads to an enormous ethical conundrum regarding, for example, non-trans actors playing trans characters. Personally, I’m of the opinion that if you’re ok with a trans-man playing a man (on account of them being a man) you should be alright with a cis man playing a trans-man (it’s called acting, darling). Not everyone agrees, and I respect that. If, as the author, you feel particularly strongly about casting then you need to say in the cast list. Although, I’m sorry, but do remember that the more restrictive you are the harder it will be to get your play made.
Speaking of which, I have no trans actors on my lists at the moment. So, if you’re a trained anglophone trans actor based in Paris, get in touch. The strongest argument for casting trans actors in trans parts is that it can be much more difficult to get cast if your trans! I can’t promise trans parts (trans-writers, write me something good with trans parts [I like spaceships]) and send it), I’ll look. But if you’re good I’ll probably find you something,
Anyway, name, age, gender. If gender is unimportant then put “any gender.” I’m just saying Glen Close would have made an awesome John McClane. Give me the freedom to make awesome choices for your text.
Give me some broad clues to the character
Not everyone feels the same way about this, but I like a line or two telling me what this person is like. Are they confident and outgoing? Have difficult talking to people? Have just come out of a difficult relationship?
There’s a school of thought that says all of this should come out in the script, and that if it’s in the cast list but not the script then you have a problem. Both things a probably true, and you need to make sure all the important stuff is in the script. But giving the producer and the actors a heads up helps them make good decisions with your script.
When I’m reading a cast list, I’m trying to hear a voice. If you can give me a clue of what that voice will sound like, I’m a step ahead in casting, which means I’m a step ahead in visualising your play, which means I’m a step closer to wanting to make your play.
But don’t be too restrictive.
47-year-old man with a high-pitched west New Zealander accent. Where the hell am I going to find one of those in Paris on no budget, with no time, who is also a good actor? Equally, talking animals (yep, I’ve had it), and children are a big no-no. Unless you’ve been commissioned to write a play for kids, then you’re asking the director to jump through a dozen child safety law loopholes on the journey to find a kid who can rehearse around their school schedule and then hang around those notoriously child friendly places called theatres.
Race is another interesting question. Some stories are rooted in race, and if you’re qualified to write it, write it. But I may have trouble casting it. The more specific you are the more difficult it will be. I get a lot of American writers who want to write about native American culture, about which I know nothing and, well, there just aren’t a lot of native American actors in Paris (if you are one, and you’re reading this, get in touch!)
By the by, we run into a similar problem specifying everyone is white. Do you really need the suburban English doctor to be white? Is it an essential part of your play? Because I’d love to be free to cast a non-white actor.
The bottom line is to stick to that which is essential. The less restrictive you are, the more I can concentrate on getting the best actor for the role rather than finding a 70-year-old New York Jew who grew up in Shropshire. Focus more on their role in the story. If their whole role in the story is to be a New York Jew, then maybe you want to think about the sort of stories you are writing. The cast list is of enormous practical value, is your chance to show me you’re a professional, and the first opportunity to make the character’s real character’s and not just tropes. Use that opportunity.
Speaking of which, my first novel, “Vile”, the not-so-heroic fantasy adventures of Combat Magistrate Elianor Paine, went live yesterday. You can get it on Amazon by clicking on this text.
