6-23-06
The Actor's Best Friend
Erica Daniels
“How do people break their foot bartending? It’s so pathetic. You can’t even make that up,” the Steppenwolf Theatre Company casting director says now.
Instead of sending out the headshots she’d had made, Daniels ended up taking a six month internship at Jane Brody Casting. She loved the work. It made it abundantly clear to her that acting wasn’t the path she wanted to follow. She didn’t have the personality type.
“Getting up and saying, ‘What am I going to do today? Maybe I’ll go do a monologue in my bedroom?’ I couldn’t do it.”
Even today, when she hires actors to work in Steppenwolf’s casting department, she warns them it’s hard to go back. “You just see the numbers of people that are out there and the struggle it is to actually work and make a living,” she said.
Daniels also sees “the silliness” of the industry through her casting lens. “Sometimes it just has nothing to do with what the actors are doing, but what’s going on the other side of the table.”
Daniels knew some of the reality of the casting biz when she was in college. She was told that she wouldn’t work much right away. Her teachers said: ”’You’re not going to work for 15 years. You’re going to age into your look.’ And I’d say, ‘Well what am I going to do for 15 years?’”
At Jane Brody, Daniels realized she was “really good at facilitating other people’s careers and not so good at doing it for myself.”
That led her into agenting. When her internship at Jane Brody ended she moved over to Shirley Hamilton and then to Arlene Wilson.
Next up there was that detour into the F.B.I. Yes, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Daniels had been interested in the law and found herself drawn into the process, constantly expecting they’d realize that the idea of making her an F.B.I. agent was absurd. But she ended up getting in. “Every time they called and said I’d made it to the next level I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”
However it wasn’t long after she showed up for training at Quantico that Daniels realized it wasn’t the job for her. “I think I wanted to play a secret agent. I don’t think I actually wanted to be one.”
She returned to Chicago to work at Geddes before moving to New York for an assistantship under George Lane at William Morris. Five years ago, the Steppenwolf position opened up and she decided to return to the Midwest and to the casting side of things.
“It seemed like it was really the perfect job to mesh my knowledge of actors, my knowledge of writers and directors at that point, and to do a little more creative work as opposed to the one-on-one agenting,” she said.
Casting allows Daniels to be more immersed in the process of putting on a play, rather than acting as a headhunter for individual actors and developing their careers. “I’m not the therapist anymore, and I like that. That relieves me of a lot of responsibility in their lives,” she said.
Yet she credits her skill as a casting director to her experiences as an actor and an agent. It’s given her a “deep compassion and understanding for what drives someone to want to be an actor.”
Daniels aims to make the auditioning experience as comfortable as possible. “Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, I think everybody feels that when they’ve walked out of the room at Steppenwolf that they’ve gotten the job,” she said. “They’re made to feel like they matter and what they do is valid. I don’t really put on any airs or attitude. It’s utter respect for what they’re doing.”
That respect keeps Daniels works long, hard hours to find talent and match the best actors with parts in Steppenwolf shows.
The challenge is to find the right fit. It’s tough to be aware of all the different people acting in the city and determine who are the 25 best candidates to bring in for each role. “It’s ongoing to see the amount of theatre you can see, to see new people, to get to know new actors. It’s daunting to remember who is out there and make sure you’re bringing in the right people.”
Draining also to want the actors to do great work while simultaneously wanting the directors and writers to find the person they need. “You want actors to do well, so you’re rooting for them behind the table. Sometimes I get overly passionate about a given actor and I’ll realize, ‘Okay, I’ve now pushed the director into going the opposite direction,’” she concedes. “You realize how to push and how to prod. It’s that constant negotiation that you’re trying to figure out.”
Daniels is good enough at it to gain enthusiastic praise from Steppenwolf artistic director Martha Lavey. “She’s a real gift to our theatre,” she said. “She is such an intrepid and caring casting director.”
As casting director, Daniels works to be “the best possible matchmaker,” Lavey said.
“She always features the actor’s strengths, without being in any way unrealistic about the abilities of an actor,” Lavey said. “She just really loves actors. And she loves directors and the writers to whom she’s also serving, too, in that sense.”
Daniels, 36, also is willing to assist directors and writers at other companies. She’s recommended actors for Lookingglass, Rivendell, About Face and greasy joan shows (to name but a few).
“People I’ve never even met call me for ideas,” she said. “I try to form relationships with them because I feel like that’s something we have to do at Steppenwolf, because we are a big theatre and we have resources some of the other theatres don’t. The only way to really be in conversation with the community is to help when smaller theatre companies need help.”
How does she know so many actors? Beyond all of the shows and showcases she sees she is also immersed in the industry socially. “Seventy percent of my social life, probably more – I’m trying to make myself sound like I have a life outside of this place – 90 percent of my social life is with people in this industry. This is my world.”
She does see work outside of the city. She heads to New York usually four times a year and annually attends the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She’s also visited Wisconsin and is planning to make a trip to Minneapolis to check out the theatre there.
Yet her priority is to cast Chicagoans. “I feel responsible to the Chicago community. So I really push hard for the Chicago actors. I’d rather see 50 people for a role and find them in Chicago than have to go to New York,” she said.
“I’m really pleased that the majority of the actors that have been on our stage in the last five years have been Chicago actors and I’m really proud of the diversity that’s been happening.”
Of course, Steppenwolf is an actor’s theatre, so casting ensemble members is always on Daniels’ mind. Having such a core of company members to turn to can be a fantastic boon or a giant challenge – especially since so many of the ensemble members are successful here and around the country. For instance, Rondi Reed being cast in Wicked was great for the actress but “so sad” for Daniels because she knew she couldn’t cast Reed on Steppenwolf’s stage for a year.
The job is tough and tiring but rewarding. “Nothing is better than making that call to someone and saying ‘Do you want to do a play?’ That still, five years later, is the greatest thing in the world. You can’t beat that when you can hear that energy on the other end of the phone.”
She doesn’t necessarily see herself as a champion of actors, but admits there are times she’s proud to see certain people on stage at Steppenwolf. “Because I had seen them in a showcase or a show and you wonder is it just me? Am I the only one who’s going to like them?”
She recognizes she can help someone’s career, but says she doesn’t really go about thinking of herself as having power over an actor’s future.
“To say I’ve made somebody or broken someone? No, I think I’ve helped develop careers and I’ve discovered a couple of people at showcases and introduced them to somebody. But you normally don’t read in the reviews that the casting director put together a fantastic cast.”
It helps that she remains accessible and considers herself an advocate for the actor. “I really am rooting behind the table for somebody to do well and let me cast my play.”
But it’s been 15 years since the beer cases accident and Daniels should, according to her teachers, have now grown into her look. Is she getting ready to send out new headshots?
She says she’s only willing to act again if someone wants to immediately make her a star. “If someone discovers me, fine, that’s fantastic. Who would say ‘no’ to that? But I have no interest in actually just auditioning and being put in a play.”
It’s an awareness that feeds her “healthy respect” for those she brings in to see as a casting director.
Daniels’s advice to actors:
– It is possible to gate-crash the Steppenwolf Equity general. Daniels tries to see as many people as possible and estimates 150-180 non-Equity actors had a chance to do their monologue the last time. “That’s a great way for me to get to know you,” she said.
– Understudying at Steppenwolf can lead to being cast for stage roles. “I don’t waste people’s time. I really invest in actors I want to bring into the mix.”
– Realize your worth: “Remember that when you’re called in for an audition somebody thinks you can do the role. Someone thought you were right. Whether or not the director is going to respond to you positively, the casting director thought this was an interesting idea. We always know what we’re doing, so if you walk into a lobby and you’re a blonde haired female and the only people in the lobby are African American men, just assume you’re in the right place. Don’t psyche yourself out and give away your power.”
– Saying ‘No’ is okay. “You don’t have to come into an audition if you’re not comfortable with material. I’d rather you not waste my time and just decline the audition. If it’s a play with nudity and you don’t want to do nudity, just decline the audition. Saying ‘no’ and keeping your power and making decisions for your career – that’s what you start doing when you’re young and until you’re done in this business.”
– Play nice: “Be nice to everybody. The person that’s opening the door for you and checking you in could be the head of the theatre or the studio tomorrow. This industry changes so much that you just have to play nicely in the sandbox. I’d rather cast somebody who plays nicely in the sandbox any day than the person who’s absolutely brilliant with a huge attitude.”