Exclusive: What Goes Into Casting a Broadway Show? Casting Directors Tell All

Ever wonder what goes into casting a Broadway show? What are you doing wrong in your self-tapes? What do you have to do to be seen by a creative team? All of these questions are answered in a recent interview with Broadway casting directors Bernard Telsey, Erica Hart, and Erica Jensen.

All three are quick to admit that the pandemic changed the process of casting and some of those changes stuck. "It's a great thing to get to include this process of 'online casting', but it's important that it doesn't become the only way," explained Telsey. "It's great that we get to see so many more people. What's challenging though is how we then work with the creative teams. We all know that people are better in the room... you get a sense of who the human is that you don't get on the tape."

"A lot of the process is us knowing actors already," added Jensen. "If we are meeting someone new, what I do is look to the resume to find other work that they have done. I think that I have been able to get a sense of people. I still feel something [watching someone on tape]. You can still get that feeling."

Hart spoke to efforts to increase diversity onstage. "As a Black woman, I am very excited about the changes that have started. We are making one step in the right direction," she said. "I think that diversity onstage and on screen is important, but diversity backstage and behind the camera is even more important so that we have authentic stories [to tell]."

Watch below as they chat more about what goes into their jobs and watch the conversation in full (and even more conversations with your favorite actors of stage and screen) with SAG-AFTRA Foundation.