What is a casting decision a director gave you that you still can’t understand?

My wife was once told that the music director didn't like her audition because they felt she was showing off and the director didn't like how flirty she was reading her part of the scene (the characters have sex 10 minutes later). They then cast a 20 year old to play a 40 year old who was parent to a 20 year old played by a 30 year old.

Our high school musical. The Pyjama Game. Myself and a fellow junior were called in to sing and read for Babe and Sid. We were in choir together, and I felt the audition went well.

Also, in this audition were two seniors. Neither of them could sing, like at all. One was completely tone dead, and the other with some training probably would have been OK.

The director cast the seniors because 'If I cast juniors it will give the younger students ideas above their station'. The whole school thought the production was a joke because our two leads couldn't sing.

About 10 years ago, I met the director, and they told me it was the biggest mistake they ever made in casting.

I wasn't cast as Hero in a production of Much Ado because I didn't "look related" to anyone else he was casting. He literally pulled me ivy the audition room again at the end of the night just to tell me how much he loved my audition and how he wished he could cast me but for only that reason, he couldn't.

This wasn't even in a professional setting. It was community theatre. Bothered the hell out of me.

So during my school days I was part of a youth theatre company. You had to pay for entry and everyone one was guaranteed a role you just auditioned to see who you would get. Most shows were double casted because of small cast sizes, but we did one show with like a 30+ character cast. The worst part was that about half of this cast were major characters who appeared in most scenes. This one girl who was a terrible actress got a major role because she was one of the older students. Not only did she suck, she rarely showed up to rehearsal. This one girl with one of the super tiny roles, who was much more talented regularly understudied for the role whenever this girl didn't show up. On dress rehearsal day the girl was late and we thought she wasn't even going to show up. The cast pleaded with the director for the girl taking her place to just have the role for show day, but the director said "she paid so if she shows up she goes on". Obviously we were furious when she shows up only 10 minutes before we go on. She didn't know her lines so she just adlibbed all her scenes. This (along with some other reasons) made this show the worst the theatre company has ever done. This girl literally made the director add a rule where if you miss 3 rehearsals without notifying the director you lose your role. The show was also so bad the cast swore to never utter its name again.

Not a casting director per se, but a competition judge once criticized me for seeming too villainous instead of romantic in a song.

It was Where's The Girl from Scarlet Pimpernel. He is, in fact, a villain. You can tell, because the song is sinister as hell.

My director in High school had decided we would be doing You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. But, since it's a small casted show and we had a big class, she didn't want to make any cuts. She ended up double casting the show (I was one of two Charlies), but get this: instead of having Cast A perform x shows and Cast B perform Y shows, she wanted us to switch off every scene. We told her we had no idea how it would even make sense to an audience and we ended up doing a different show because she couldn't secure the rights for YGMCB. Thank goodness she didn't get the rights, though. The show we ended up doing (Curtains) was great, and I still really appreciate her as a director. I played Aaron Fox and to this day it's one of my favorite roles. That specific decision on YGMCB was crazy, though.

Recently just did a production of Bright Star and the vocal director said he’d quit if the person who ended up playing Jimmy wasn’t cast as that part. His reason was that he was the only one who could sing the vocal part, even though we were doing the school edition so it was lowered. Ended up being the worst performer in the whole show and couldn’t act and was constantly flat or just sang wrong notes. Director has since expressed many times how terrible of a casting decision it was.

i played adolpho in the drowsy chaperone when i was in third grade.

i’m female, white, and looked/sounded especially young for my age as a third grader.

Casting me as one of the strippers in Gypsy at 16…

Our casting team in high school only cast the rich popular kids. I couldn't even get a silent role, or a part in the chorus. It broke my heart. I love theater so much, and I was excluded because I wasn't rich or popular enough.

Auditioned for Chicago with The Pinstripes Are All They See from Catch Me if you Can (nailed it btw) and got called back for Amos instead of Billy...

In my tiny high school we were doing The Wiz and we had lots of students of color to round out the main cast, me included. I was a senior, paid my dues, and a soprano. They cast me as Aunt Em despite not being able to hit those low notes in The Feeling We Once Had and then gave Glinda to a white girl. The optics of making the ‘good’ character the only white lead in a black musical went over their head. 

I'm gonna sound petty but here goes.

I was part of a project to do Chicago at my school, all amateurs. The director (another student, same age as me) said I had done a great audition (I know I sang well but he said I had a "huge glow up on the acting side" which just made my day after dealing with negative feelings with the production), but he casted another guy as Billy and me as Amos because "You could have easily played both but I can't see him do Amos". The difference of acting time, number of songs, and overall interest for the character is honestlybhuge between the two, so of course I was mad, especially with that reason.

Other guy was honestly the root of my problems because he had an important role in the team he knew I was envious of (we were friends so I didn't wanna be silently jealous and fester, I tried to be honest and work on it) and was a prick about it, so obviously the reason the director gave just made me so mad. 6 months later the show's done but the team had a lot of problems dealing with Billy because of his ego that obviously got inflated by the role (never knows his lines after being constantly told, distracting every one using his leadership roles in critical times, just being a pretentious pain with everyone, etc) and everyone just had a collective falling out with him he still doesn't seem to know about because of course everyone loves him, anyway...

My friends and I made amends between ourselves, but I really wanna tell them "More proof you should have picked me" but it's all water under the bridge now

I once auditioned for a production of Avenue Q for Gary Coleman (mixed race female) and the director told me that she didn't case me because I didn't play the character "street" enough. It honestly floored me to the point that I asked if she even knew who Gary Coleman was and that she wasn't casting someone to play 50 cent. 😂

A play in high school had about half the roles as parents and half as teenagers. I've looked over 30 since about age 12, so at callbacks I obviously read for 3 different parents. And then I got cast as a teen I hadn't read for. The director's reason? "She's an athlete and you're bigger than me"

Got cast as a tree in my senior production of the Wizard of Oz after my director told me many times that she was grateful I was doing the show (I had been thinking about not doing it for other reasons) because they needed strong actors/singers for the leads 🤪

Also nearly had my brother cast as my love interest once because he and I were the most competent performers in this particular cast. Thankfully they went with a different guy (though they had to work really hard on his vocals) but omg that would have been a nightmare

I’m the most femme performer of all of the auditionees and they cast me as Spot and Henry in Newsies (to be played as a guy)

Was once told my playing type was “imps, fairies and Kathy Bates characters” and one of those things is not like the others.

Also when I was about 11, my (from memory, completely white) musical theatre class did a concert of songs/scenes from Ragtime in which me, a wee blonde, green-eyed girl sang Sarah Brown Eyes with a 10-year-old Coalhouse who was not only blonde and blue-eyed but had a British accent.

This is different from the others, but in our local theater’s recent production of Phantom of the Opera, they cast the person that plays Firmin as Phantom US and the person that plays Piangi as Raoul US. They also made the Piangi US a bass/baritone for some reason (he hits a low E as Don Attilio)

My school did Rent last semester and cast a black woman as Mimi over the 3 (very talented) Hispanic women. The woman who played Mimi couldn’t even handle the role vocally. You could tell she was straining her voice

High school. My director was a nightmare. Wouldn’t cast me as Maria in The Sound of Music because I “wasn’t an ingenue”. I was 5’1”, 110 pounds but had boobs. Apparently you have to be flat to play Maria? Never mind that I had chemistry with the guy playing The Captain. Never mind that I had played Brigitta in a regional production. Never mind that I knew the entire play and movie of it word for word.

It’s OK tho. She cast me as the Mother Abbess and I had the only perfect score as a soprano 1 at the choral festival. And a standing ovation at each performance. Suck it, Mrs. G.

My dad is a very talented actor he's in a local production of Sweeny Todd, which surprised me because he doesn't even like the show that much he plays the judge and my step mom mom and my dad all agree that it's a no for me even though I'm 19 although my lovely dad who is very sweet has never played a actual villian before I don't have experience with Sweeny Todd either Stagedoor up in conifer Colorado