We held auditions for The Vine Yard! (Pause for applause)
That Saturday morning rolled around and I dragged myself out of bed (we’d had a late night the night before), woke up a hungover Josh (who had lost his phone sometime in the night and messaged me from his computer at three in the morning asking for a wake-up call), and made some coffee. I printed out the necessary copies of the script we would need, made sure our moral support friend was ready for me to pick her up, and wrote a note for our friend Jared, who was still fast asleep on our living room floor. After making him some coffee and making sure he had a key to the apartment, Josh and I left.
We arrived at the audition site with twenty minutes to spare. Josh set up the room, moving some chairs out into the hall, while I texted my actors and went upstairs to meet them. Once Century Tower chimed noon on the dot, I took my three actors down into the basement of Turlington Hall to begin.
I felt a little let down, honestly, that only three people showed up (out of the 15 that originally replied). A couple had emailed me to tell me they couldn’t make auditions, and would be emailing me their audition videos. But still. When one of the actors asked if they were the only ones coming, I was really disheartened. I didn’t want this to look like it wasn’t a real production, even though it didn’t feel real to me. I mean, we were filming this thing with our cell phones. These were actors that were going to want to use this footage for their resumes. I didn’t want to let them down! Yet, at the same time, I was proud of this writing, of this show. Either way, I was a little upset.
Auditions, themselves, went well, though. We had each of the actors read their parts, and Josh filmed, while I took notes. At the end of the day, I was pretty sure who I was going to cast as Joshua L. Glass. After reviewing all the video auditions I received, I was also pretty sure of who would be Alexis, the best friend/love interest. But we didn’t have enough actors to fill all the roles. Josh and I even considered changing one of the characters, Roger, from a male to female role, seeing as we had so many women audition.
So, Josh and I took to social media. I posted in my UF Class of 2017 site, the short film group I was a part of, and on the Chabad Board group, while Josh posted in groups he was a part of. (Shout out to Sam Iachello for posting the info in her improv group site, too!)
Within three days, I had seven people email me, interested in the project. I sent them the audition material from the second day of auditions, and gave them a little less than a week to send in their video auditions. A couple people got back with me right away, but, since the internet was out in my apartment, I didn’t have the chance to review them right away.
I was still thrilled, though. These actors were fabulous!