CUPAL lends a hand in theater casting

With the whirlwind audition processes about to start for theater groups across campus, the Columbia University Performing Arts League announced a new program they think will make things a little bit easier.

CUPAL’s Production Agreement serves as a guide for actors planning to audition for several productions, letting them see when rehearsals or tech weeks conflict and what is feasible timewise, as well as helping the creative teams coordinate among themselves to minimize overlap.

“People didn’t know that they were trying out for shows that had performances on the same day, at the same time,” said Will Hughes, CC ’13 and CUPAL vice president. “Because the creative teams weren’t talking to each other, people found out weeks later.”

Jessica Chi, CC ’15, who attended CUPAL’s kick-off Monday night, said, “All my callbacks [last semester] were in one week. I was literally running back and forth between buildings.” She said that the new production agreement “will make the process smoother.”

In the words of CUPAL co-president Victoria Pollack, BC ’12, they developed the agreement over break to deal with “a lot of nitty gritty things that are really frustrating,” such as actors being cast in leading roles in more than one show and having too much overlap between them, or actors dropping out because of conflicts.

“I’ve witnessed a lot of frustration as directors try to work out rehearsal schedules only to find that it’s impossible to get a whole cast—or even just the leads—into the same room at the same time,” said Diana Levy, CC ’12, CUPAL representative for the King’s Crown Shakespeare Troupe.

One way that CUPAL hopes to fix that problem is by having actors notify CUPAL with their top choices for roles. A CUPAL member will sit in on the casting meetings and speak on the actor’s behalf as decisions are made.

“For those lucky actors who get called back for several things where we can see that the directors are really in a gridlock, that’s when we would step in and voice the actor’s preference,” said Pollack.

Pollack and Hughes emphasized that they would only intervene if there were a major, unavoidable conflict, saving actors from the uncomfortable conversation with the creative team outlining their preferences.

“It’s so awkward. It’s good to know, but it’s uncomfortable all around,” Hughes said. “We really feel that the three of us [presidents and co-presidents of CUPAL] can really be impartial because we don’t have a vested interest in any of the shows. We have a vested interest in all of the shows.”

For Pollack, it is just a question of honesty. “The more … straightforward you are about conflicts and what you’re interested in being involved in, the better prepared the C-teams are to schedule around your schedule,” she said.

CUPAL hopes that the agreement will build more camaraderie among the different theater groups, which sometimes have been rivals in the past. The kick-off meeting discussing the agreement was the first time all of the creative teams had ever come together collectively, according to Pollack and Hughes.

And although Pollack concedes that there may be “some bumps and bruises” on the way, other members of the community said that they are excited to see a more unified theater community.

“We all rely on the same resources­­—space and actors, to name just a few—and I think this is a step in the right direction in terms of cooperating together for the benefit of the theater season as a whole, rather than for our individual groups,” Emily Nagel, CC ’12 and CUPAL’s representative for XMAS!, said.

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