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Random Casting

 A challenge for stage and screen.
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For a play or film, put together your cast as per normal - pick people who can not only play the role but look the part. Get them to rehearse their roles and work out a good character - mannerisms, gait etc., but to learn the parts for all characters.

Then, before filming (or opening night) switch the roles randomly so that each person is playing a different character. Stage plays could rotate the cast every night. The audience would be treated treated to such classics as Lady Macbeth being played by a big burly scotsman or a role reversal in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

The actors would have to try and keep as many of their mannerisms of their set character as possible while tryng to play the new character. The skill would be in playing that role convincingly through this handicap.

—st3f, Jun 28 2002

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       I keep thinking this is a new play called "the night they all got drunk in the fracture clinic" - break a leg, stthreef. croissant.
—po, Jun 28 2002
   

       Half-baked-ish in fiction. The second to last part of "The Ship Who Sang" by Anne McCaffrey involves some theatrical types who, during rehearsals, realise that they're getting stale so do this to refresh themselves. It would be amusing to see it for real though. I'm thinking 'Death of a Salesman'.
—angel, Jul 01 2002
   

       What about the actors costumes? Would they play the new character in the old ones clothes? Dick Van Dyke IS Mary Poppins! It could turn an innocent kids movie into a horrid drag-queen festival! What would be especially wierd is if people switched roles (but not characters?) at a change of scene. But think of the chaos if it were applied to a fillm such as The Usual Suspects:   

       'so that guy is a thief...that guy is...so which one is he?....Is that the head bad guy? But he was dead a minute ago!...oh that was a flashback....But that guy..he's definitely dead!'
—Jinbish, Jul 01 2002
   

       There's a practical issue to be addressed: learning the new lines takes time. Would one memorize the entire play?
—RayfordSteele, Jul 01 2002
   

       Rayford: As each actor knows learns more of the play more possibilities for substitution occur. It would be best if every character knew every role.
—st3f, Jul 01 2002
   

       Baked -- there was a fairly long-running production last year at some tiny theater in New York that used almost exactly this scheme -- the casting wasn't truly random but chosen by audience vote at the beginning of each night (the audience vote was semi-random, since most didn't yet know anything about the play).
—hob, Jul 01 2002
   

       Oh pooh.
—st3f, Jul 02 2002
   

       yes, piglet?
—sappho, Jul 02 2002
   

       I thought you were tigger.
—st3f, Jul 02 2002
   

       no, that's my alter ego. Rarrr!
—sappho, Jul 02 2002
   

       I think we should extend this idea to random polling of the nation - like jury duty. A letter arrives, summoning you to play Jar Jar binks in 'Star Wars Episode 3: Enough gungans already'.
—NickTheGreat, Jul 03 2002
   

       Three-quarter baked, kind of, in the new film 'Palindromes': Aviva, the lead role and a girl of 14, is played by loads of different actors throughout the film, of different races, ages and even gender.
—bookends, Jun 10 2005
   

       This would just tend to make for a worse performance.
—just4kinks, Apr 18 2008
   


 

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