Musical auditions cause drama in theater department

In the aftermath of the auditions for the spring musical, “The Sound of Music,” rumors and complaints have spread about the rigorous audition process being slightly unfair, in addition to it being long and difficult. The audition process can be broken down like so: there are three rounds, and then a callback. One round requires participants to prepare sixteen bars of a song and perform it for the directors. The acting portion requires them to either prepare a monologue prior to the audition to perform or do a “cold read” in which a monologue is given to the participant the day of the audition. The other portion of the audition is the dancing portion, which requires students to learn a routine. Then, there is the music callback, during which only a few are selected to come for the last round of the audition and perform once again. After the callback, the final casting decisions are made. In this case, the decisions were made by director Katherine Barraza and vocal director Erica Brettler. According to Barraza, she picked “The Sound of Music” because of the beautiful orchestration. “It's a nice full cast and I wanted to include a large number of performers,” Barraza said. “It seems to be a wonderful love story that draws in a large number of audience members. It's a great opportunity to expose our elementary and middle schools to our program and to the arts.”On Nov. 21, when the cast list was put up, there was some upset over the casting. Some students felt that the casting was unfair. Others were completely fine with the results of the auditions. “I wasn’t offended by any of the decisions, as this was my first audition for a theater production,” Griffin Lowe (’17) said. The students who were more upset by the results were upset because they felt that the directors who were casting the show were biased, and felt that they were not being given the right amount of consideration or opportunity for certain parts. Students said that this was apparent during the callback especially, and believed that the bias present was due to relationships between specific actors and the directors. “I thought it was unfair because they didn’t even give people a chance to audition for the roles that they wanted,” Maddy Korneychuk (’18) said. “Even if the director wasn’t considering them, they still should have gotten a chance.” There were no complaints over the way the auditions were done; auditioners felt these demands were a good way to test their abilities. There were a few who wished that they had more of a say in the casting, or at least the casting process. However, students had to accept the audition results and have faith in their director to make decisions that they knew were the best for the musical.Though Hannah Cohen did think the auditions and results were unfair, she was proud of people who auditioned and did their best. “Everyone auditioned, and it was up to the people casting it. It was their vision, not ours. Even if we disagreed with it, it was their choice,” Cohen said. “People are always disappointed when it comes to casting. I did notice that a couple people didn't take smaller or different roles than what they hoped for, which is their decision,” Barraza said. “When we cast, we take a hundred things into consideration and the bottom line is that I'm always going to make decisions that are in the best interest of the production as a whole. I cannot cast someone in a role when their voice or personality isn't right for it, just because I like them. It's hard to disappoint people, but it's part of my job.”