Casting Office Etiquette for Kids
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asting offices can get crowded, especially with kids. Imagine a large group of children in a cramped space, waiting to be judged by strangers. Add strollers, siblings, gameboys, iPads, food, backpacks, and cell phones to the picture. Then imagine kids running lines and primping, preparing for their “big break.” Not to mention the chatter about who booked what job and the catch-up conversations between parents. Auditioning is part of life for a child performer. And it’s tough. Jen Rudin, an award-winning casting director for film, television, animated movies, video games and theater, began her professional acting career at age eight. By twelve, she knew she wanted to be a casting director. Rudin believes in “creating an honest, positive, and comfortable audition environment.” “It’s a very small world and certainly casting directors talk to
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agents and production managers,” says Rudin, who has spent much of her career casting for Disney and now works through her own agency, Jen Rudin Casting. Her work includes “The Princess and the Frog,” “Chicken Little,” “Meet the Robinsons,” and “The Incredibles.” Upcoming films include Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie” and Peter Bogdanovich’s “Squirrels to the Nuts.” Rudin views the waiting room as a professional workspace. “You may not think you are distracting [actors] but subconsciously you are shifting their focus away from their audition material and ultimately depleting their focus,” she says. “That can be really detrimental.” Rudin believes that casting office etiquette begins with kindness and respect. “As my father likes to say ‘All you have is your name, so leave a good name.’” Casting kids means, to some extent, casting their parents as well, and Rudin looks for “good” people.
“Be pleasant to the casting assistant in the waiting room because they are going to tell me anything wacky that happens,” she explains. “It’s their job. I hear plenty of stories. Sometimes I will love a kid and say to my assistant, ‘So, what happened in the waiting room today?’” Rudin suggests that conversations, especially between families, be kept to a minimum. “There is nothing that another actor, or another mother, is going to say to you in the waiting room that is going to make you feel better at that moment,” she says. Any audition-related conversations with your child should take place once you leave the building and be limited to “Did you have a good time?” “Whatever you say in a public space could end up being overheard,” warns Rudin. “You never know who is in the elevator or in the toilet stall next to you.” Shaking hands is one of Rudin’s pet peeves and strongly discourag-