Film and Stage

 Features including a new untitled (dir., Charles Lyons, shooting autumn, 2017); shorts, Long Ago and Far Away, dir. Mark Brecke, (Bernal Heights Film Fest). Full length plays:  The Cool, co-director Smith Dobson. Chetty's Lullaby, dir Sharon Huff Robinson, Pagan Warship and The Cool at Jimmy's #43, NYC. Directed, cast, and and adapted Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger.

 As an actor for over 22 years, and as a producer for six, I've been in countless audition settings, both auditioning and casting. Some say that a good portion of the director's job is finished once casting is complete - with the right talent assembled, the project can achieve itself. Working closely with directors and producers, casting professionals help clients develop great theatrical and commercial art.

I cast for film and stage and corporate.

Corporate: 

... providing businesses seeking sharper profiles with options for picking the best talent in their region. 

Finding the right talent is an overlooked but crucial component of the time-sensitive and collaborative efforts  required in corporate media production. I shorten a process sometimes bogged down by extended or agency-oriented casting sessions. I have cast a total of 27 top-line hotel (Fairmount chain) in-house promotional videos, see samples below. Casting talent from Edmonton to Miami Beach, Winnipeg to Los Angeles and many stops between, I find the best actors to shine.

Current CASTING:

5/24/2017:

SEE BELOW FOR CHARACTER BREAKDOWN!

Auditions for a variety of roles for Café Stories - June 27! From an 80 yr old retired CPA to a barista who manages an entertaining sh## show, there will be many unique opportunities for unique SF/Bay Area actors.

SUBMIT NOW.

  Submissions instructions:

Send reels, resumes and headshots to: pwatt99@gmail.com .

CAFÉ STORIES   To play at the Phoenix Theatre, Sept 14-30, MASON ST, SF

Rehearsals begin in August.

Set at a First Wave coffee shop in San Francisco, in 1990, Cafe Stories examines the pre-digital, pre-hyped coffee culture. 2 plays sought. Set in these mom-n-pop caffeine zones, right before the Second Wave (with Starbucks, Peet's, Einstein's,) spread nationally, choking the smaller cafés, the stories absorb our unacknowledged and overlooked debt. 

Regarding its proximity to hotness, a wiped down MacBookAir, and the supposed delicate ways one can flirt with (over all the other cozy distractions) someone wearing earphones, Third Wave needs a little schooling. Philz could be an example of a successful company, starting in the first, surviving the second, thriving in the third!

The three plays will have intermingling casts.

Please prepare a one-minute monologue in the comedic vein of character chosen; callbacks are held the same night (6/27/2017 at the PHOENIX). Scripts sent upon approval of submission materials. Actors will be notified at the break if they will be required for callbacks. Audition will run 6-10:30.

SEEKING ACTORS of all ethnicities. Inclusive to performers with disabilities!

85 yr-old retired CPA, CAUCASIAN. Seeking an actor advanced in age, no younger than 70. Totally right with his zeroes and ones, this man is in the twilight of life, engaged in an elaborate ruse to teach his impertinent son a lesson, or to simply bring him to a dyspeptic boil.

PRAM: 28-38  She's a monied drifter, irreverent, barely adjusting to mothering her triplets, who dispenses of her extra creativity through pathological lying. She loves elaborating feverishly, and is physically affectionate. 

SABRINA: 28-38: A leading actress in the semi-professional SF theatrical scene, she can't resolve her rocky marriage with her outsized desires to play through the pantheon of female leads, as she finds herself falling for her leading men. The title role in the Bair play, seeking to perhaps double cast with PRAM (Delarosa play).  Seeking experienced, nuanced actress with range for both roles.

BUTTER: early-to-late 20s barista: this actress will be onstage for the entire three plays, not changing character. Spunky, enjoying her work almost as much as her attitude about it, the barista has the looks and talent which almost require her upcoming move to the city where stars are born: LA. Irreverent and coy, she is the one character who has continuity. Knowledge of working a real espresso machine is a plus, but not necessary.

PROF - 50-70: This man is homeless and wears a screen mesh to fortify his enlarged medulla oblongata against the elements, but he has a degree from Stanford. Embracing the rawness of The Hater (Berkeley) who died a few months back, PROF is both able to drive intelligent arguments as well as persistent requests for chump change. The actor must prepare for filthy cold trash food and concomitant flights of speculation on the "Intensity and Effects of the Microwave Spectrum of Nuclear Detonations". May also play Friend 1.

WASHER: 25-70:  A BMW-driving and voluble window washer, this actor must have sensory work experience or be able to learn swiftly. WASHER and BUTTER are colleagues of a type, who fleece the absent owner of the cafe. May also play Friend 1.

FRIENDS 2 & 3: Appearing in the Bair play as pretentious semi-professional actors, perhaps also in the other two plays as extras, and perhaps during intermission hijinks.  

4/17/17:

CALL FOR PLAYWRIGHTS: THE SEARCH IS COMPLETE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. 

4/1/17: Accepting submissions for "Café Stories", with 6 acts and three plays, set at an SF coffee shop in 1990: 

Seeking two short plays amenable to being split into two sections. One-acts split in two.

Cafe Stories is presented as a three act play, split into three chunks, which are themselves split down the middle. Can you do the math?

In other words, the one accepted play (A), Reciprocity, will bookend the evening, occupying slot #1 and slot #6. Play B will occupy slot #2 and #5; play C slot #3 (before intermission) and #4 (after intermission). To play at the Phoenix Theatre, Sept 14-30, deadline for script submissions: May 1, 2017. Playwrights need to inquire first, then Reciprocity will be sent to applicant; plays that have already been written are welcome, with the idea that revision may be necessary.

Mail submissions (printed, in PDF form) to 

Philip Watt

257 Peralta Ave

SF CA

94110

or if that seems very 90s to you, email to:

 

pwatt99@gmail.com 

Above, Terrance Smith as James and Lanise Mckenzie as Cassondra in "The Cool".

3/20: The Cool has closed. I will be casting for a feature within the next few weeks, though.

For more information on past projects, see www.chettyslullaby.com       and

www.dylanthomas19.com