Is it normal for castings to keep being cancelled?

[BennyHill]

DS is 10 and with a great agency. He only joined a month ago.

About a week after joining, he was asked to do a self tape reading all these lines and singing, he did all that and was then invited to a casting. It was cancelled a week before so not too bad for time but frustrating for him!

He has again recently been asked to do a self tape where he had to read a bunch of lines, do some dancing and singing. Was invited to a casting and it was cancelled the night before!!

These were for 2 known companies.

Is this the norm??

Unfortunately yes.

Why do they get cancelled though?

Who knows? The casting brief might change is someone changes their mind about what they want perhaps.

Oh yes. What's worse is when your child goes through the whole process, gets the part, licensing done and then the whole thing gets canned. Welcome to the professional world of acting!!!

The most common reason for castings being pulled are a change in script - usually for financial reasons they cut scenes. That, or they have found someone that fits the bill already. Every aspect of a production has a tight budget so they won't carry on seeing people unless they haven't found what they are looking for.

Normal here too. Particularly annoying when you've asked school for a day off and filled in all the licensing forms. Soon decided that amateur theatre was much more fun.

All normal...

Add to that:

Doing the casting, being put on a pencil, agent calling several times to check availability for any more filming dates... and then never hearing another thing so you are sitting in limbo wondering if you need to get licensing sorted or not.

Have also seen some very upset parents recently at West End auditions who haven't realised that the first rounds often involve taking 10 kids off at a time where they sing one verse of a song each and then 1, 2 or none get a recall and the rest can go. Yes, you may well spend multiple hours travelling and then an hour waiting for it then to be all done and dusted in 10 minutes flat.

Some CDs are a lot more child friendly than others when it comes to things like letting you know and realising there is a child with feelings involved and I'm very grateful to them whatever the outcome!