Advertising and Finding Participants

Advertising and finding participants is the process by which you will search for and hire actors and designers to perform in and prepare your live virtual performance.



Planning your Team
First, you must determine who you will need as participants for this performance.

When planning your cast of actors, you must read through your script and determine how speaking roles are present in the text; this will determine how many actors you will need to bring onto the project. If there are many roles, you may consider double-casting these roles -- this means having one actor play two roles.

You will also need to decide if you want a design team for this performance. Designers are people responsible for building sets, costumes, lights, soundscapes, make-up, etc. Even though your actors will not be performing in the same physical space, you can still have designers visit actors' homes (according to local guidelines) to prepare specific sets, costumes, etc. Decide what design elements you want in your performance, if you want any.

Advertising for Your Team
In order to find potential participants, you will need to advertise for them.

Come up with job descriptions and casting calls for the roles you are trying to fill. A casting call is a specialized form of job description for actors, which may look like:"Character Name: gender, age, ethnicity. Followed by a brief description of the character's primary traits and personality."Place these advertisements on local and online job boards, particularly those which specialize for performers and theatrical designers. If you or your collective have a social media presence, you may want to advertisement there.

It is important to be upfront about what the participants should expect: what sort of pay they will receive, how many hours per week they will be expected to work, etc.

Interviewing Participants
Once your participants have applied for positions, you may choose to hold interviews or auditions.


 * An interview involves asking the applicant questions about the role which they wish to fill to gauge how well they would do in said role.
 * An audition is a specialized interview for an actor. It involves having the actor perform a monologue and/or read a short scene with you or one of your fellow organizers. This is meant to allow you to gauge where to best cast the actor, or if you should cast them at all.

You may also choose to forgo interviews and auditions, and to accept every applicant.

Meeting with Participants
Once you have selected your cast and crew, it is important to meet as a collective.

A meeting like this is a good way to make sure that everyone is comfortable with one another, to ensure that the entire team is on the same page as regards what must be done to complete this project, and to allow the participants to share their ideas about how to approach this process. This meeting can be formal, with an itemized agenda, or informal, as just a friendly chat. However, this meeting should happen soon after you have selected your team.