The Morality Play: Knowing and Owning Your Type

In the world of theatre, there are countless characters and dozens of "types" or categories that those characters fall into. From leading man to Golden Age ingenue, to femme fatale, to quirky best friend, to villain, to straight man, to clown, and so on, we actors have these types as a tool and guide to figure out where we fit into the performing community.

Take a look a your resume and/or your body of work. Unless you are the most chameleon actor on the face of this earth, I'm guessing you'll see patterns to the roles you've played. Those patterns illuminate your types (and yes, you can have more than one). Maybe you've got a lot of contemporary shows on your resume where you played the rebel: you might say you're an outcast type. Maybe you see a lot of silly side character roles: you could call yourself a comic relief type. Maybe you've played a ton of roles that Gavin Creel has played: you guessed it, you're a Gavin Creel type.

Before we go any further, let me start off by telling you (begging you, actually) to STOP seeing your types as a negative thing. I'll reiterate from paragraph 1 -- types should be seen as tools we can use to guide our path, navigating this crazy thing that is our industry. There's this really interesting misconception among young performers that you need to break out of your type when you enter the professional scene -- because you want to play this role over here that is totally unlike anything you've ever done and you want to prove your range! Okay, yes, I know how that goes; it can be frustrating to not be considered for roles that you really enjoy and to instead be placed into what feels like the same character over and over again. But please understand that there is a huge difference between roles you enjoy and roles you're right for. If you're really good at playing this one type and you're consistently booking work in that type, that's it, you figured out the system: ride that wave as long as you can. On the flip side, imagine you audition for a show with that same character type you always play but you audition for this other, shiny and new character type because you want to spice things up. Not only as you shooting yourself in the foot by not giving yourself the best chance you can to book, you also run the risk of telling casting you don't know who you are.

I bring this topic up this week because of an open call that I submitted to recently. In this show, there is a very wide range of character types throughout the cast, but in particular, the core five characters are all wildly different. I was simply floored by how many other auditioners submitted for not one, not two, not three, but all five of those core characters (or in some cases, every named character -- insert Jennifer Lawrence "What do you mean?!" reaction here).

Please don't misunderstand me -- I don't say this to shame anyone. If you really truly think you fit into that many types and they all just so happen to exist in this one show, you go for it. And maybe you should play the lottery while you're at it. However, you have to recognize that the likelihood of that is very slim. Do something for me: stop and think of a time that you've attended an audition, you got into conversation with a fellow actor, they told you the role(s) they were going for, and your first thought was "That is not a role for you". Don't worry, it's okay to think that -- first impressions are important when it comes to the theatre because the audience will have a similar reaction to every new character introduced in a show and make those same snap judgments.

So if you can think of an instance like that, where you make a snap judgment of a fellow actor, you have to be self-aware enough to realize that that's exactly what a casting director is thinking when you choose to sing the song cuttings for five opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum characters.

Now granted, there is some truth to "reinventing" who you are as a performer when entering a new theatre community. I had that thought stepping into the NY scene and I still sometimes wonder what types I will be, according to this corner of the world. That said, learn from your past experiences and don't shy away from them. If you have one or two types that you fit really well into and it's consistent across all the theatres and communities you've auditioned in, fantastic! You're already in a much better spot than a number of your competition. Because here's a little secret: agents, casting directors, and creatives behind the table naturally are more drawn to those confident in who they are and where they belong. So if you got it, flaunt it and proudly!

Thanks for reading, #DreamTeamHLJ, and don't submit for five different types, please (you are not Goldilocks, Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, and a bowl of porridge)!