I’ll be honest – for me, about 80% of any given general audition is about getting to know the person who’s just walked in the door.  Because process is so important to me, because I really do believe that theatre is about bringing out the humanity in one another, because I will have to spend at least six weeks of my life working intimately with the folks that I cast – all these factors play into that conviction.  It’s kind of like going on a whole bunch of blind dates all in a row – maybe it’s what speed dating is like?

I mean, of course I’m also trying to determine a lot of other things at the same time – is there anything in the season for this person? how’s his diction? how’s she adapting to our non-traditional space? where might he fit in to the ensemble I’m trying to build? what does the monologue she chose tell me about who she is? all within the same two to four minute time-span.

But, again, I think the biggest one is getting a sense of who this actor is as a person.  Which is why I am pleased as punch with the new option we’ve given as part of our generals this year.  We asked the folks we scheduled (what feels like a paltry 160-some in comparison to the over450 submissions we were lucky to receive), to bring either their favorite two-minute monologue or a story to share.  We just had our first day today (with two more evenings to follow Monday and Tuesday) and I think I can already say that allowing for stories was one of the best ideas we’ve ever had.

The seed of this idea was planted last winter when I was having breakfast with the Touch bunch before a rehearsal and we got to talking about auditions.  They said how working with New Leaf felt unique to them – and how it was interesting that our auditions were still basically the same “cookie cutter” monologue call as a bunch of other companies in town.  How could New Leaf make the very beginning of our process more reflective of a full process with the company?

This got me thinking about the reason we hold generals and wondering if there was a different way to go about them.  The tricky thing is that traditional generals allow you to see a bunch of people quickly, where having something that feels more “Leafy” like a workshop or similar would give us even fewer than 160 opportunities to see new faces.  Kyra (who’s also directing next season – yay!) and I chatted about this when it came time to send out the call for submissions, and decided that even opening the door to something non-traditional in this small way might shake things up in a way we liked, while also giving folks who are more comfy bringing a traditional polished piece the opportunity to show themselves off that way.  But truth be told, we had no idea what would happen.

If I had a dollar for every time today I said to K “that story thing was the best idea ever” – well, I would have at least enough to buy me a drink or two later this evening.  We heard some fantastic stories from some really lovely people today – and the scope and scale of these stories was a little surprising: from guinea pigs to milk cartons to scars to Thai boxing – I’m so grateful for what these folks shared today.  And really pleased we were able to get to know them a little bit better.  We also saw some fantastic, honest, engaging monologues – and had some great convos with those folks on subjects ranging from common friends in the community to those cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster (I freakin’ love those biscuits…).

I love generals – I really do.  I love being told stories – whether in monologue or personal anecdote form.  I’m eager to see what and who the next two days of generals bring us.