After 11 years as Casting Director at the National Theatre of Scotland, Laura Donnelly has decided to move on and continue her casting work in a freelance capacity. We wish her all the best and look forward to working with her again in the future.

BEST PRACTICE

We have discussed at length how best we can serve the Scottish acting community and ensure best practice in our casting and auditioning practices.

We want to ensure that we engage with as wide a pool of actors as possible and we remain committed to improving our casting processes.

We have recently completed a research project that focused on diversifying our casting networks, identifying under-representation in our casting and improving our casting and audition processes.

We continue to guarantee that every actor who auditions for a role with the National Theatre of Scotland will receive a response from the Company.

A NEW CASTING MODEL

We are going to move towards a new casting model at the National Theatre of Scotland with freelance Casting Directors being brought on board for each production, allowing us to work with a wider range of people, perspectives and networks depending on the needs of the individual show.

Casting Directors will work with the lead director on shows and our Artistic Director.

In-house casting will continue for National Theatre of Scotland projects in development.

We will shortly be recruiting for a new role to support the administrative function of NTS’s casting processes and provide a central point of contact for freelance Casting Directors when they work with us.

In the meantime, we want to reassure actors that our doors and inboxes are still open. For all ongoing queries about Casting at the National Theatre of Scotland please email casting@nationaltheatrescotland.com.

Casting Director Callout

We are launching a call out today to all freelance Casting Directors with a strong knowledge of Scottish actors, asking for expressions of interest in working with the National Theatre of Scotland as part of this pool of Casting Directors. Further information here.

NEXT STEPS

Later in the year, when we have the new inhouse administrative role in place, we will launch a call out for actors based in Scotland who either haven’t worked with the National Theatre of Scotland in the past five years, or have never worked with us before.

We will invite these actors to send us audition self-tapes which will be viewed by a selected panel including relevant NTS staff and Associates. All actors will subsequently receive feedback within 8 weeks of submission.

If you would like to sign up to receive further information about this, or indeed to receive other occasional mailings that relate to Casting and or Artist Development opportunities, you can do so here.

Full information about how we cast our productions can be found in our Casting Policy which can be found in the Casting section of our website.