If you play guitar and can sing like Green Day, casting director Julia Flores and director Brian Kite (La Mirada Producing Artistic Director and UCLA Theater Department Chair) might be looking for you. La Mirada Theatre is casting “American Idiot” for their onstage series. The series is designed to create an intimate theater experience at La Mirada by using only 199 seats a night. With the full cast, orchestra, and audience all on the stage, Kite emphasizes they are not presenting a small musical, but a big musical in an intimate setting. Which means, explains Kite, “You really have to have an incredible honesty to your performance because the audience is really close.”
After winning an Ovation award for directing the onstage series’ “Spring Awakening,” Kite is excited to be bringing “American Idiot” to the series. “It’s just an incredibly interesting show that allows you to get inside the music and the album in a way that some shows don’t. Understanding what it’s like to want more from life - to try to figure out what’s next beyond the edge of your next leap is really exciting thematically for me and the way this show does it is a really visceral, exciting opportunity.”
While the vocal type is important, Kite says “I always think acting matters utmost or equally with voice. You have to have an incredible voice and a certain type of voice for this show … [but] the acting has to be just as strong. It has to match up with the piece itself.” Kite often has actors audition with songs from the show. While actors have more flexibility early in the audition process, the director and producer sessions have very specific audition preparation.
Flores and her team have cast a wide net to bring in new talent with the unique vocal abilities required for “American Idiot.” “There is a certain quality that’s necessary for this style and this type of music and we are looking for that, so we’re looking everywhere we can,” says Kite. Add guitar playing to the mix, and Kite is anticipating a bit of a challenge. “Finding great actors who can sustain this style of singing and understand the passion and longing behind the roles is going to be tricky. You have to just get it. You have to know who these people are. You have to feel it in your bones and then put that into the characters themselves,” Kite explains.
During the director’s sessions, Kite enjoys spending more time working with the actors. The number of actors is smaller than the initial castings (approximately 10 actors per role); “Basically Julia tries to bring everybody she thinks is good or appropriate to that director’s session.” Part of the casting process for Kite is finding actors that he can work with creatively. “I only have a small amount of time to rehearse this show. Are you going to be part of the team, are you going to try different things, are you going to bring a lot to the role yourself and make choices along with me?”
“I’m very mean in auditions,” Kite jokes, as he explains he actually starts sessions with engaging the actor in conversation to get an idea of what it will be like to hang out with them during rehearsals. “That’s part of the audition for me, talking to them,” he says.
Kite says there are certain things he always expects from actors. “I like when actors come in prepared. When they know the material. When they are confident. So they aren’t worrying about the songs, about the words or the notes and they can work with me on the acting and movement. I like that.”
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