The Door’s Open for Unknowns

While last year’s annual lament during pilot development season was a shortage of leading men, this year the networks--awash in “Dawson’s Creek” wannabes--have taken on a different theme: Give us your young.

In recent weeks, ABC, Fox and UPN, apparently confronting a shortage of quality talent between the ages of 18 and 25, have turned to open casting calls as they scramble to put together a bevvy of youth-oriented sitcoms and drama pilots for a possible fall 1999 launch.

“Calling All Funny Young Men Between the Ages of 20-25,” says the press release sent out by ABC, which holds its open call today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the ABC Entertainment Center in Century City. The network is looking for someone to star opposite Susan Floyd in “Then Came You,” a sitcom about a romance between a thirtysomething woman and a younger man.

“With that age range at such a premium, I promise you they had a bunch of casting sessions, they didn’t like anybody, and so they said, ‘Let’s throw it open,’ ” said a source, commenting on ABC’s decision to go public with their casting.

Said Donna Rosenstein, ABC’s senior vice president of casting: “We wanted to be completely thorough because the guy’s really young.”

That ABC and others are holding open calls with only weeks left in a months-long pilot development season strikes some as evidence of network ineptitude--or at the very least evidence of an unwieldy pilot process.

“It’s the age-old mistake in our business,” says one observer of the 11th-hour sessions. “Networks wait forever to do their [pilot] pickups, so that everyone’s shooting pilots at the same time.”

When Fox threw their casting doors open last month in a cattle call at the Directors Guild of America, about 1,000 hopefuls between the ages of 15 and 21 showed up to be considered for a number of comedies and dramas the network has in the works. And last week, UPN held a public casting session for a sitcom called “Shasta McNasty,” about three rappers, described in the Hollywood Reporter as “the Beastie Boys meets ‘The Monkees.’ ” “Must have a hip-hop attitude, look and style,” the release said, encouraging all ethnic groups to come audition.

Of course, for every Tea Leone and Bruce Willis (both TV stars initially discovered through open calls), there are thousands still taking complicated latte orders at Starbucks. As casting executives themselves acknowledge, looking for talent at an open call is a far cry from actually being willing to take a chance on that talent.

But Robert Harbin, senior vice president of casting at Fox, says being unknown can be an advantage. Provided you’re young.

“As far as open calls are concerned, you have a better shot [discovering] young people,” he said. “By the time they’re 40, they’ve probably already given acting a shot.”

Some industry observers sigh in resignation at the open calls, seeing them as evidence that the pilot process has become hopelessly unwieldy. Network and studio executives, they say, are too involved in the creative process, gumming up the works and making it harder each year to get a green light on projects.

This year, a glut of pilots take direct aim at the youth market--everything from NBC’s “Freaks and Geeks,” about high-schoolers, to Fox’s “Time of Your Life,” a “Party of Five” spinoff.

Those coming to ABC’s casting call today, meanwhile, are advised to bring photos and a resume. But leave the birth certificate at home.

Last October, you might recall, the television industry awoke to a traitor in their midst--Riley Weston, a 32-year-old actress who’d posed as 19 to get a writing job on the WB’s college drama “Felicity.” The event cast a brief but shining light on the depth of Hollywood’s obsession with youth. Then everyone went back to business as usual.

Could there be a Weston-in-waiting this pilot season?

“On the form there was not a space for age,” joked Fox’s Harbin. “We just needed to know if they were under 18.”