Shop Talk: Carey Cannon and the Art of Casting, Part 1

The artistic staff is hard at work filling roles with these amazing folks, and other incredible actors from around the country. We chatted with Associate Artistic Director Carey Cannon about the process and how things have changed in part 1 of this 2-part interview. 

APT: You have been working with APT on casting for quite a while now. Do you want to talk a bit about the evolution of how it’s changed and progressed?

Carey Cannon: Everything I've learned, everything I do now, I learned watching Brenda [DeVita] in the room with actors. We come at things very differently, but with the same goal. Which is, you have one opportunity to really get to know somebody and figure out whether or not they'll thrive here, and enjoy our kind of work, and our kind of crazy, and our kind of word nerd. And who really want to dig in, and don't care about the bugs and the bats. People who care about the work, which for us means caring about the words.

I met Brenda first as an actor. So I experienced how she did her work from the other side of the table. And I walked out of that room in San Diego, and I will never forget it - I was like, I want to go where she is. I want to go do work where she is.

So my process when we’re working on casting is to figure out my own way to be able to be that for artists. To exemplify what Brenda was in the space for me, which is so interested, so excited about what APT is and does, and what it can be for artists, that they catch that excitement, and want to come work here. Honestly, we have enough things in place that keep people from our work – both its classical nature, which can keep artists feeling like it's not for them, not written for them. And we're remote, so exciting artists about the idea of coming out to the middle of the woods or right in the middle of the cornfield – whichever analogy, both things are true – and do this work that is really hard when there's all kinds of content being created and other ways they could spend their talents.

We think of it as capital, and we want to let people know that working here is a good use of your artistic capital. So again, it's been my journey of, from that first moment in San Diego 20 years ago, to today, figuring out how to excite that interest in people. Because I want to find the exact right storyteller for nine very different stories, for nine very different directors. So finding the right ingredients when you've got nine chefs, essentially, is an interesting and complicated thing to do.

APT: Can you talk a little bit about how the casting process has changed in the last few years?
CC: Well, we used to hold an in-person general audition, and people would come and you'd see maybe 50 people doing pieces that they choose. There are a limited number of people you can see, and again, we are in the cornfield, so I have to go to a place where people can meet me.

And it was Bob Mason, actually at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, who said a few years ago that, now when we need actors, we say, "give me a two minute video." And that way the actor, in the comfort of their home or in their agent's office, can just give you a calling card of their work. More and more actors have websites, and they're very useful tools. Very useful for regional theaters like APT that are far away from magnet cities.

So, that's different. We began that before the pandemic, and then once the pandemic began, that was our only tool. So I was glad to have gotten a little jump on it, and actors had gotten a little jump on self tapes, which has become like a meme – ‘insert favorite actor here,’ pretending to be an ‘insert favorite archetype here,’ in their bathroom. So there's a lot of that.

Then our content on Zoom in 2020, the few auditions we did was all video. And now, we have cast full shows in our season from video. There's an actor in our season who we have never met in person. I'm going to meet her on Monday, but we've already offered her a role. So she and many actors are learning how to really show up in this medium. And it's hard. We have a thousand seat outdoor amphitheater, and you’re casting that from an 18-inch screen. And the actor is in their house, and maybe their roommate's home, or their kid's sleeping, and they’re auditioning for, say, a Shakespearean king. You've got to fit some size and intensity into this tiny screen.

We cast an extraordinary actor in Oedipus from video, knowing she was going to be on the Hill. Now she'd been in the business a long time, and we talked to a lot of people who worked with her, but she did everything she could to show us she had size on video. And it's hard. We are doing a lot of calling card video auditions, sometimes with sides, which are pieces of the script that actors work on, and sometimes just for their own material.

APT: That’s fascinating. How does all that feel to you?
CC: So here's what I think, to be really fair about it, what it does is it evens a playing field to a degree. Sometimes actors without cars, actors who have to work multiple jobs, actors who are managing childcare, there are barriers to getting to an in-person audition. Video removes a lot of those barriers, because everyone has a phone, and with a phone and a little quiet, you can get to show us your art. You can meet us. I can meet you. So, in so far as that goes, it's a tremendous asset. I do miss what can happen in an audition room, because you have a team; it's not just you and the actor. Whereas a video or a Zoom can be very one on one. We often bring actors who are familiar with us - a core company actor, or an actor who has worked with us before - along to in-person auditions for the auditioning actor to engage with. So they get a chance to talk to Kelsey [Brennan] or Donovan Diaz and I'll say, "Please ask questions about us. They know us." And if we're doing a culturally specific casting call, being able to talk to someone who's worked with us, and who shares their cultural identity helps them get to know us better. So there are just more access points when you're in person."

But the reality is, we recently had an in-person audition, booked the space, got the hotel, went to Chicago and our director got sick. So she was on Zoom and we were in real space with the actors. So we have done every version of this. When we auditioned for The River Bride, everybody was on Zoom. I was in my office, Brenda was in her office. Jake [Artistic Associate Jake Penner] was in his office, Robert [Director Robert Ramirez] was at home. The actors were all in their own homes, and we figured it out and we had a reader on Zoom too. Erica [Actor Erica Cruz Hernández] was there on Zoom. Sharon [Moshure] who's our IT goddess, has been really instrumental in us being able to use the tools that are out there to get better at this.

Up next: In part 2 of our interview, we'll hear more about what it was like to cast this season, and who you'll be seeing on APT stages.