How much should playwrights worry about cast size when they write a script? This unsavory question is driven by the economic mess that has imperiled nonprofit theatres in recent decades.
Writers are advised to keep casts small. The smaller the cast, the less production expense, the better chance of getting produced. Such is the conventional wisdom these days.
I recall comments Edward Albee made on this subject a dozen years ago at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, where I was having a play read. Another play on the docket that summer called for something like 20 actors. Albee kindly suggested to the earnest but green author that he rethink whether he really needed all those characters and, by the way, your chances of getting that produced are zero to none. But then Albee went on to contradict himself, telling us that your play should contain the number of characters necessary to tell your story, and economic considerations should not distort that principle.
I was reminded of Albee’s comments this past weekend when Linda Hartzell, Artistic Director of Seattle Children’s Theatre (SCT), and renowned writer Robert Schenkkan (1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Kentucky Cycle) (photo at right) spoke on a panel.
Hartzell, for whom financial reality is impossible to ignore if she wants to keep her doors open, said that while the rare exception can be made, small casts are now the norm. She noted that ten years ago SCT employed 65 actors in its season; this year they are hiring 26. Median cast size was nine; now it’s four. Hartzell’s not happy about this; she was just giving the audience (all writers) a reality check.
Schenkkan agreed with Hartzell’s view but then continued to make the same knowing contradiction that Albee did: writers are compelled to tell their stories, however many characters they contain. Conventional wisdom is not always to be trusted, Schenkkan added. A few years back he wrote a two-hander, By the Waters of Babylon, that received strong notices (I saw two productions, both good). He’s been disappointed in the relatively weak interest in that script since its initial productions, despite its budget-friendly cast size.
On the other hand he has a new play, All the Way, now on the boards with its premier production at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). All the Way is a drama about the first 12 months of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, a year that changed America forever. Schenkkan’s new play has 17 actors playing 63 characters! And here’s the kicker: Schenkkan is getting all kinds of production interest in his new LBJ play from theaters around the country.
All the Way is rumored to be the hot ticket at Ashland this fall. (It just so happens that I am seeing it in two weeks.) It runs through Nov. 3. The play is directed by OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch who previously directed two other Schenkkan plays and who commissioned this new work. The OSF website contains a terrific eight-minute video of Robert Schenkkan discussing this new play, and a three-minute video with Rauch talking about his collaboration with Schenkkan.
My takeaway: Pay attention to cast size but don’t let it be a dominant factor in how you write your play.
