Mar 31, 2021
Julie and Casey sit down with theatrical casting director (and
Tiktok rock star) Kate Lumpkin, to talk about the stories we tell
and why we tell them, changing the jargon that creates unhealthy
power structures, how authenticity happens in front of an audience,
and burning our old ideas of “type” to the ground . . . both inside
and outside of the theater world. Prepare for the dropping of many,
many mics.
TOP TAKEAWAYS:
- Kate's background in anthropology and folklore provides one of
the major lenses for her work: how stories shape and change the
world. “We hear
this mythos that there are only seven stories and we keep repeating
them and refreshing them and re-illuminating them […] but what I
find fascinating is how we’ve taken those core hero stories and
TRANSFORMED them over time, and the potential we have to continue
to transform them if we change the gatekeepers of who allows us to
tell what stories.”
- The power of words and the problem with jargon: A phrase
consistently used in the theater world is to refer to the casting
director and creative team as “the other side of the table” . . .
which, inherently creates a divide (and a power imbalance) in what
ideally should be a space of play and collaboration.
- On being "Publicly Personal”—when people walk into the audition
space that Kate creates, they know who she is, they know what she
stands for, they know that she’s there to listen and be their
champion without judgement.
- On the surface, a casting director’s job is to “acquire talent
for a production” . . . but in addition to her job getting to know
the immense talent pool of actors out there, Kate also finds
herself being part therapist, politician, director, HR person, and
explorer.
- Type came out of the studio system in Hollywood, and was a way
to essentially commodify an actor’s personal brand into something
audiences would come back again and again to see . . . but where
type has landed is “what do (mostly) white men find
attractive/witty/sexy/charismatic” and what they can imagine
someone with your body doing onstage. Rather than an actor trying
to identify their “type” (fitting into someone else’s narrow box),
she’d love them to think about their through line as a person: how
does that expression of self affect what stories you want to tell
and what point of view that their life’s journey allows them to
bring to a role/story (of which your body is certainly a part . . .
but not the whole).
- What is your Point of View? The moments in your life that have
made you YOU + the code that you live by (what you stand for, what
you would fight for, what you believe in) + how you filter those
things out of your body and into the world (how you express
yourself).
- Authenticity and performativity are NOT antithetical . . .
because everything we do is in concert with other humans. We are
always performing. So, how do we curate an authentic self that
shows up? First of all: YOU are the arbiter of your own
authenticity. Secondly: it requires self-reflection (those moments
than shift your POV happen all the time). We have to check in with
that, and we have to not judge the previous versions of our
authentic selves. And . . . do the work. Stay curious. Learn about
yourself. Go to therapy. Do the work. Things look performative when
we try desperately to adhere to an external standard (what is
popular, what is “successful”) rather than doing the inner
work.
- On that “thing” that certain people walk into a room with
(charisma, confidence, whatever you want to call it) — it comes
from having done that inner work on knowing who you are . . . and
bringing it into the room with no apology or need for permission or
validation. When you have that, you don’t have to even talk about
it or “show it off” . . . you just ARE.
- Kate considers her Meisner training “a two year professional
certificate in listening.” Because this type of training is about
listening and repeating, listening and repeating, listening and
repeating, you not only learn to hear what’s being said, you learn
to observe what’s underneath. In addition, Meisner requires that
you get comfortable with discomfort, including the messier parts of
ourselves. If we learn to sit with our own “messy uglies” and have
compassion for those parts in other people, we could really change
everything.
- DO NOT MISS Kate’s Big 5 question answers.
- LESSON: Getting out of the “prove yourself” mindset and walking
into the room with power.
Kate Lumpkin (she/her) is the Founder of and
Lead Casting Director at Kate Lumpkin Casting, CSA. Collectively,
as a casting professional, she has worked on over 40 TV/Film
productions and 80 theatrical productions in New York City and
across the USA including shows at The Kennedy Center, The Actors
Theatre of Louisville, The A.R.T, NYTW, and many others. Kate
teaches workshops in New York and at numerous Colleges and
Universities. She is a private coach to clients all around the
world. Kate is also the host of Broadway WELLness for
Playbill.
Selected casting credits include: New York
Theatre: OSCAR @ The Crown, We
Are Here (dir. Steven Hoggett), Medusa, We Are The
Tigers,
Safeword, Afterglow, Cleopatra, The
Bad Years, Eco Village, A Complicated
Woman, Boarders, Between The
Bars, Unraveled, Letters to the
President, Reunion '69, Single Rider,
Diaspora, The Other Side of Paradise, Counting
Sheep, Sitting Bull's Last Waltz, The Excavation
of Mary Anning, Agent 355, Emma: A New Musical, Love In Hate
Nation, Five Points, Hart Island, Eastbound, Interstate, Honey
Dipped Apocalypse Girls, Fefu and Her
Friends. National
Tour: Bandstand (1st National
Tour). Regional
Theatre: Endlings at American
Repertory Theater, West Side Story at The
Kennedy Center, On The Town at The Kennedy
Center, Beau at The Adirondack Theatre
Festival, Evocation to Visible Appearance at Actors
Theatre of Louisville, We Are
Here at The Cosmopolitan
of Las Vegas, Opium at The
Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas , A Christmas
Carol 18', 19' at Actors Theatre of
Louisville, Reunion '69 & Reunion
'85 at the Newman Center. For more information, please
visit kate-lumpkin.com. @katelumpkin
Interview intro and outro music: "Elevator
Heart," music by Julia Meinwald, lyrics by Sara Cooper, from the
musical Elevator Heart, music by Amy Burgess and Julia
Meinwald, book and lyrics by Sara Cooper