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Being picky as a director can be a good thing.  One of the best lessons I learned as a director is that everything an actor does has meaning, and your job is to channel it to the right meaning.  I've had to cast shows with people who didn't satisfy my initial vision, but because I understood why my initial vision mattered and why they didn't fit it, I was able to play with the meaning in a purposeful way.

As an actor, too, I know I've been cast sometimes by directors who saw something in me that was against how I'd imagined the character would be (height, age, etc.).  The good directors used that purposefully.

Perhaps I'm speaking a bit too in the abstract.  Let me give an illustration.  I'm rather short for a male.  Yet I've sometimes been cast as characters in positions of power.  If I had the height and build to play them as intended, replete with confidence, gravitas, authority, etc., I would.  But because that would be unintentionally comic, good directors have encouraged me to go the Napoleon complex route.

Another example: one of my favorite roles was in a play that concerned a love triangle with myself, a sickly friend, and his caretaker.  I was too young for my role, and the friend was too old for his.  A lesser director would have just gone along with it, but this director encouraged us to use that, to play up a subtext more along a sibling than peer relationship.

So, the point of this very long ramble is that it's fine to have ideas and expectations of what these characters should be, but if you're having too much trouble casting that, at least use what you have to meaningfully and precisely reshape where you're going.  If you do something deliberate with "miscasting," it becomes much less of a mistake.

If you could not cast the show from your available actors, it was terribly irresponsible of you to agree to do the show in the first place.  Perhaps you are too close and need to graciously bow out and let someone else take over the reigns that will allow themselves to see past your limited view of what is required.

ok, here's the deal...you have 7 posts; self admittedley a newcomer here.  Patrick, on the other hand has 315.  He's been here a long time and is a respected member of this message board.  He was not bashing you nor giving you attitude. He was just being Patrick.  The last 2 sentences of your post were unnecessary and uncalled for.  I'll excuse your bad behaviour, however, as I'm hoping you'll pull back your claws and be a respectful member of this great message board and get to know us all.

Many good suggestions here.. The best. If your company isn't up to the "dream", either, get a new dream, (lighten up on your expectations, it is community theater, not pro and by pro I mean PAID, where you can go out and hire what you want) Try doing it somewhere else? or just continue to dream.. we all need one.