We were really struggling to cast Ophelia for our production. To use the posh phrase, it's a cross gender cast or, to put it another way, Polonius and Laertes are both "breeches roles". Also, everyone is playing multiple characters - so the actor playing Ophelia is playing Rosencrantz, Osric and Fortinbras. And Laertes also plays Guildenstern, Barnardo and the captain.
This means girls playing boys and boys playing girls..so why not a boy for Ophelia? It's what Shakespeare would have done, after all! but we couldnt find a boy for Ophelia....back to the gender-bending drawing board..then Holly dropped into our laps and Ophelia etc was cast. Phew, we all thought, now we are set. Then our Laertes left...uh, oh, what to do now?
Back to square one. Then we realised that our Gertrude (Amanda - also producer and director) had always wanted to don breeches and brush up her stage fighting so...we shifted her to Laertes (only a new set of lines and moves to learn, no problem!) and then we needed a Gertrude. That was easy - we talked to Jenny Stokes (already known as Dolly Grip and many heavyweight roles in The Crucible, All My Sons and Six Characters in Search of an Author) and she agreed to do it. Fully cast and under way! Full speed ahead now and cooking with gas! (metaphors as mixed as the casting!)
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