Many Are Called but Few Will Be Chosen for ‘Rent’

By noon last Friday, the colorful queue at a nondescript building on Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan had snaked past a long stretch of lower Broadway and almost wrapped back on itself--a gigantic chorus line with resumes in hand and hope in heart.

More than 2,000 young wannabes responded to an open-call audition for new productions of “Rent,” and the scene was a media carnival of ambition and camaraderie, pierced derma and painted jeans, drag and guitars, joy and heartbreak. All of which, of course, was a reflection of the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical about East Village bohemians with its of cast of raw talent, some of whom had never before been on a stage.

“Precisely because this show is about discovering unknown talent, we’re only going to find out if someone’s unknown and talented by doing these kinds of open calls,” said Bernie Telsey, the casting director whose entire office was on alert in the daylong search for talent to fill the 15 roles and four understudy spots in upcoming productions of “Rent,” including companies for Boston (this fall), Los Angeles (not before next year) and Toronto, as well as replacements for the New York cast.

“It becomes a very complicated process because few of the norms of casting apply.”

The call for “singers who truly have a quality of street life, can move well and have a good time” drew hopefuls from all over the country, some arriving as early as 4 a.m. to register and be assigned numbers.

Among the early birds was Sara Mann, No. 121, a 20-year-old Emerson College student who had flown from Boston with her roommate, Abby Gonzalez, for the audition. Like many here, Mann, who is from Los Angeles, had not seen the Broadway production of “Rent”--”too expensive, too sold-out”--but was familiar with television snippets, just part of the vast hype surrounding the show since its modest beginnings off-Broadway early this year.

“I love the show’s message of love and community, AIDS and cross-dressers and lots of stuff you don’t have in a typical Broadway show,” Mann said. “It makes me happy to know that theater is starting to thrive again, at least a little bit.”

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The mood on the line was festive at first but shifted to tense as the queue inched into the fifth-floor hive of rehearsal rooms buzzing with adrenaline and oozing sweat as hopes were either lifted or dashed. A young woman blinking back tears and avoiding eye contact emerged from room 5A, the first hurdle.

Inside, Heidi Marshall and Corry Ouellette of Bernie Telsey casting sat behind a table casting critical glances at resumes nervously handed to them and asking a few questions to determine if a tryout had the right personality and presence for the show.

“How did you hear about the audition?” Marshall crisply asked a woman dressed in a white bolero top and jeans.

“From Backstage,” she said, referring to the theater trade publication while tossing her head with seemingly calculated nonchalance.

“How would you describe your voice?”

“Just like Alanis Morissette,” she responded.

Wrong answer. The agency was looking for original voices, not mimics; for individuality, not clones. Another who insisted she looked just like Idina Menzel, one of the original stars of “Rent,” also was “typed out.”

During a break, a weary Marshall said: “There are so many difficult roles and specific needs for ‘Rent,’ so even though I’m seeing a lot of very trained and qualified actors, they just don’t have the right quality, the right rawness. It’s a sexy, hot show, so if I see someone coming in here in a flowered dress, I think, ‘Oh-oh, not the show, Miss.’ Unless, of course, it’s a man. But then, just a look doesn’t cut it, either.”

To find the original cast last year for Jonathan Larson’s “Rent,” which opened at the small New York Theatre Workshop, Telsey casting spent five months calling agents, haunting rock clubs and following leads of “someone who knew someone who knew someone in a band.”

After rave reviews downtown, the same cast moved to Broadway’s Nederlander in time to qualify for this year’s Tony Awards. The show won four Tonys, including best musical.

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Waiting just outside room 5G to sing his 16 bars of music--pop, rock or gospel, no Broadway show tunes allowed--was Christopher Carothers from West L.A. The actor, 34, who has performed in “Les Miserables” at the Pantages, was steeling himself for the audition, having flown into New York two days before and flopped on a friend’s couch in Chelsea. Although “Rent” is a quintessentially New York show and he was surrounded by New Yorkers, Carothers said he didn’t feel out of place.

“I think there are certain aspects of ‘Rent’ that everyone can relate to: You’re poor; you’re trying to get along the best you can, dealing with relationships, friendships, lover stuff. The role I’m going out for, Mark, is an underfunded artist from an affluent background living in poverty. That’s my life.”

Meanwhile, six hours after she’d arrived, 25-year-old Stacey Gotkin finally got a chance to belt out “Alone,” a song made famous by Heart, for Bernie Telsey himself.

“That was good,” Telsey said. “You got anything else?”

Gotkin had brought another song but had left it outside in the anteroom where groups were nervously milling about, waiting for their chance to sing by puffing themselves up with confidence or laying flat on the floor in Zen-like trances. Retrieving the music, the young woman sang a ballad, “Could We Do Magic,” and waited expectantly for the response, which was positive.

After Gotkin skipped joyfully from the room, the casting agent placed her resume on the second of five piles in front of him, noting that the lucky few who do get callbacks are likely to go through three more stages of auditions before they even get a chance to strut their stuff before Michael Greif, the director, who is also artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse.

“‘We’re willing to give people second and third and fourth chances.”

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Indeed, in Telsey’s “A” pile was the resume of 23-year-old Michael Estrada, who earlier had sung a rather pallid ballad for Telsey but who had an arresting voice and presence that caught the agent’s attention. But Estrada had not brought another song with him, so Telsey asked him to improvise with the pianist, Jim Abbott.

After singing a powerful rendition of “Amazing Grace,” Estrada was greeted by Telsey’s slight grin, as close to a thumbs-up as is imaginable for a New York casting agent.

The much relieved and very excited Estrada later recalled that he had auditioned for “Rent” in the early stages of the musical, before it moved to Broadway. “I don’t know if he remembered this,” the Honolulu native said, “but this was the same guy who ‘typed me out’ the last time. I was so bummed. But I knew this time was different. I just wanted a chance to sing, you know, to show what I could do.”