So since I last introduced myself I had my first experience of running some open auditions as a casting assistant. Now, you may know how open castings is thanks to the What Is An Open Casting? post, but since the last time I edited it (I was probably 17 when I wrote it!) it is in serious need of a re-write.

A really great read for anyone about to attend some open auditions is The Stage’s extract from the Actors’ Yearbook.  It really breaks it down everything you need to know so definitely check it out.

If you’re reading this I’ll assume you are under the age of 21 and you are just getting started with acting. You are probably looking for more experiences and open auditions are a good way to meet industry professionals – even if it is only for 3 minutes!

In general open castings and auditions are held when the casting team want to see new faces, anyone they may have ‘missed’, or if they are after a specific type of person that they haven’t found through agencies. It doesn’t really matter if you haven’t got any acting experience – if it mattered that their actor had experience or not, they wouldn’t be holding an open casting!

For this particular open casting we rang schools to let them know we were holding the casting and said anyone interested should come along. I phoned and emailed various youth theatres, drama clubs and posted the call in various places online.

If you’re looking for open casting, notices can be put out in plenty of places where they think the person they are looking for might read them. For example;

If there is a casting brief sometimes the casting team will use the following websites. In all honesty, rarely would some of these sites get used for big film or television projects, but in some cases, the casting team use these websites for finding child actors or again, anyone they may have ‘missed’.

So what are the casting team looking for? Well, read what they specify. Are they looking for someone who IS aged 16 or who LOOKS 16? There’s a huge difference. For example this is the casting call we put out;

FEATURE FILM – LEAD ROLE – MALE, WHITE AGED 16.

He is interesting and otherworldly. Young looking 17 year olds may be suitable.

Not a lot of information there, and you will probably find that there won’t be huge amounts of information about the project. A lot of the time this is because you’d rather not/are not allowed to put the name of the project out as a lot of the info is confidential.

The actual casting day itself was extremely interesting. I can see how easily a casting call can sometimes become a ‘cattle call’ with members of the casting team desperately trying to remember everyone that walks into meet them as well as trying to ensure everyone is seen as quickly as possible, thus avoiding anyone waiting too long! This is where the stickers with numbers come out – as much as I hate calling actors by their ‘numbers’ it is sometimes unavoidable when you just want to keep organised!

Ultimately, only turn up when you fit the brief. At this particular casting anyone who turned up who didn’t fit the brief we saw them anyway to make note of for future projects – but be warned, in most cases you will likely be turned away.

That’s it for now and as always, if you’ve any thoughts or questions do comment below!