Why do we cast actors younger 18 in some shows, but not others?

We love working with younger actors.

And when we work with them, we take their safety very seriously; accordingly, we follow rigorous Child and Youth Safety Procedures.

Our Child and Youth Safety Procedures require us to, among other things, background check every adult in the cast, crew and production, to recruit additional adult volunteers to ensure actors younger than 18 are adequately supervised and to have every adult who participates in a production go through a one-hour training. This ultimately means dozens of additional volunteers hours that must be covered by adults and hundreds of dollars to run background checks.

We generally plan our season to have shows that require the casting of actors younger than 18 (e.g., A Little Princess, Tuck Everlasting, Secret Garden, A Christmas Story), but we also plan shows that have no available roles for actors younger than 18 (e.g., Blithe Spirit, Shiloh Rules, Ruby Sunrise) and we do not open casting for these shows to young actors.

In the middle, we have shows that may reasonably be cast with actors younger than 18 but do not necessarily require it (e.g., Little Women, She Loves Me). These shows in the middle are decided on a case-by-case basis; if we have actors younger than 18 audition, the director is free to cast them; but the director will do so knowing the challenges of recruiting additional volunteers, subjecting the adult participants in the show to additional volunteer hours and spending hundreds of dollars from the budget. Thus, there may be a situation where an actor younger than 18 auditions and the only thing that precludes the actor from being cast is the fact that the actor is younger than 18.

While we recognize our policy may cause disappointment, we will not compromise our commitment to ensuring the safety of actors and other volunteers that work with us, especially those who are younger than 18.