Directing: Contacting the Director

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Contacting the Director

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Directing
Forum Discription: For questions about handling shows, actors, crew, board members, children ...or do we repeat ourselves?
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5225
Printed Date: 10/31/25 at 12:29am
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Topic: Contacting the Director

Posted By: hobbyactor
Subject: Contacting the Director
Date Posted: 12/22/11 at 7:36am

Is it ever ok to contact a director after auditions?

Recently I attended auditions for a local community theatre production. The director stated that everyone who auditioned would be contacted by a certain date. It is now several days past the specified date and there has been no word.

Replies:

Posted By: ZFix2000
Date Posted: 12/22/11 at 7:51am

Unfortunately quite a few directors and theatres are very lax in their letting everyone know audition results if you are not cast. I feel it is very rude and unacceptable behavior from people who want you to give your all if you are cast.Then they get offended if you accept another offer while waiting for them to get off their butt. I think it is up to you if you call or not. If you do find out the show has been cast and they did not contact everyone, it would make me think twice about auditioning for them again.

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If You Can Dream It I Can Create It

Posted By: pdavis69
Date Posted: 12/22/11 at 9:23am

If the director stated "everyone who auditioned will be contacted by xxxxx date" then yes you have every right to call and politely ask about the cast. A tradition at our theatre has been to state only those cast will be contacted tonight when a decision is made. It can be a rough wait, but if you do not get a call, you have not been cast.

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Patrick L. Davis
Fort Findlay Playhouse

Posted By: Majicwrench
Date Posted: 12/22/11 at 4:02pm

If someone told me "everyone would be contacted" and then they didn't follow thru, darn right I would be giving them a call.

On the flip side, I have (tried) calling everyone who auditioned for shows, you end up with wrong numbers, message machines that don't work, 3 yr olds answering the phone....what a hassle.

Keith

Posted By: edh915
Date Posted: 12/22/11 at 5:23pm

By all means, contact the director and ask if the show has been cast yet - particularly since he said "everyone" would be contacted.

To be fair - he may be having difficulty getting ahold of his preferred cast. I know I don't contact secondary characters until I have my leads locked in place, because I may have to promote a secondary to primary and use someone I was not going to cast initially to fill the secondary spot. Majicwrench is right. It can really be a chore contacting people who (you'd think) should be dying to hear from you.

Break a leg.

Posted By: hobbyactor
Date Posted: 12/23/11 at 7:35am

Thank you for all the replies.

At this point, I am about 99% sure that I was not cast. I have a potential conflict with rehearsals that I had already discussed with the director. He told me to go ahead and audition, but the turnout was decent so I figured he wouldn't want to take the risk with me.

There are only around 5 people that he would have to notify that were not cast. In the past, he has used email for this, and I know he has my email.

I think I will shoot him an email. I have been approached about another project and need to get a few things scheduled. It would be nice to turn the 99% into 100% before I make other commitments.