It's not your ordinary audition. That's because it's not your ordinary show. Blue Man Group may be one of the most unique shows to achieve its level of critical and commercial success. And the process to become one of the blue men also takes a unique shape.
Deb Burton has worked with Blue Man Group since 1997. After a year of working crew for casting calls, she moved into the casting department.
"I kept piping in with my opinion, so they figured that this was a good place for me," she said from Blue Man Group's New York space.
Before joining the company, she'd cast smaller projects, but nothing of this scope.
"I have a lot of friends who work in casting, and we're an entirely different kind of beast," she said. "The character sort of informs the process for us."
A lot of casting is about the external, especially in film and TV. That's by necessity, Burton explained, because those mediums are selling something in different ways.
Blue Man Group has specific physical requirements--potential blue men must be between 5'10" and 6'1" tall with an athletic build and outstanding drumming skills--but so much of it is about the internal life. The painted men play a variety of instruments and perform a variety of physically demanding tasks, but physical fitness is only the tip of Blue Man Group's iceberg.
"It requires a lot of vulnerability in people rarely called for in acting and casting sessions," Burton said. "Many seasoned actors say it's the most intense audition they've ever done. Even those who don't make it find it's opened their eyes in other ways and fed their [acting] process."
When casting goes on the road, each actor who sparks their interest will do between two and three auditions at a given location. If they're up to snuff, Blue Man casting brings them back to New York for a three-day intensive audition. Three separate auditions and a workshop are packed into those workshops, which are conducted six to eight times per year. So the average Blue Man goes through about six auditions before being cast.
With resident shows in Las Vegas New York, Boston and Chicago, and a new show opening in Berlin, Germany on May 9, the casting office is always looking for talent, both as potential blue men and musicians.
Burton and her assistants have been all over the country, looking for talent, from the expected places like Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York to unexpected places like Austin, Texas. "For us there's a really huge and amazing talented music scene down there," she said, adding that they plan to attend the South by Southwest music conference in the coming years to look for talent.
Because of the upcoming Berlin opening, Burton or her associates have also traveled to London, Montreal (as well as other parts of Canada) and all over Germany and Switzerland and Holland.
With periodic open call auditions in Las Vegas, Burton looks for actors with something very specific."I think the two things that they have to come in [to the audition] with are drum skills set and the vulnerability."
Because the Blue Man process is so personal, the company is really willing to work with appropriate talent who may lack some of the necessities. They actually started a drum skill school. The company can't train someone without drum skills within the rehearsal process, but it can send them to drum skill program. "If we feel like they're making progress, they can train for as long as they need to--six months or even a year."
But when it comes to acting, Burton emphasized there are some things you just have to be able to. It's vital to be able to improvise and to be accessible enough, so that you can produce genuine emotions through improv and acting. The show is scripted, but there are a lot of different things that can happen on any given night. Burton stresses that improvisation is vital. And solid ensemble acting is imperative for the show.
"You cannot manufacture emotions because that's really bloody obvious if you do," she said.
The company is pretty strict on the height range required because of the aesthetic of the show. "The three as one unit is important. You don't want audiences to say, 'the tall one is funny or did you see what the short one did?' The close heights bring a nice unity to it."
But she acknowledges that those stringent requirements may sometimes preclude them from hiring a super-talented actor/percussionist. "It's unfortunate because we've missed some amazing people who are 5'8" and that's a bummer."
Although there was a woman in the Boston cast for a few years, it's tough to find females between 5'10 and 6'1 who also have strong drumming skills. When they find really talented female drummers who aren't tall enough, Burton said they "wrangle them in" and try to get them into the band.
The casting department oversees the musician process but we don't actually conduct those auditions, which resident musicians generally handle. Burton said they can "vary wildly."
In Las Vegas, there are nine Blue Men (three onstage each night), 23 musicians (seven onstage each night) and a lot musicians can play a variety of instruments. They also try to train the blue men in all three roles so they can rotate if need be. Worldwide, there are 30 domestic blue men, seven international (Berlin), plus 5 directors who swing in if necessary.
Just because you're cast out of the Las Vegas audition, it doesn't mean you'll perform there, just as you can audition in Boston and wind up in the Las Vegas cast. Actors have to be flexible.
"We cast with the intent that they can go anywhere. A lot of domestic casting we do is to fill open positions, so actors need to be able to go anywhere," Burton said.
But there's no denying that some actors seem to gel with a specific city's vibe. Marcus Weiss (featured on BackStage.com in November 2003) possesses the kind of energy that's perfect for Las Vegas, Burton said.
"Vegas is high key, high energy, while they're (the community) more laid back in Chicago. Vegas has crazy kinetic energy all the time, and our production reflects that."
Producing a show in Vegas is always a gamble, even if it's something that's been wildly successful somewhere else. For example, De La Guarda, the off-Broadway hit, fizzled within a year in Sin City. But Blue Man Group has thrived in Vegas since opening in March 2000.
"We got to be part of changing the landscaping of Vegas. The timing when we went in was key. The creators really researched it. The city was on the cusp of becoming something very different than it was before. It was right on the edge and it was nice to be part of that change."
A lot of new material was brought in to the Vegas production, which has eventually spread throughout its other locations. It sort of morphs, and doesn't really change very often, she said.
Blue Man Group will be in Las Vegas for casting at the end of May or beginning of June for an open call. Burton stresses that it's most important for actors to be authentic when they try out for the show.
"The key thing is not to come in and try to be what you think we want you to be. We know what we're looking for and we want to find it under the layers of someone," she said. "We don't want someone to come in wearing the mask of it."
For more info, go to www.blueman.com