Come On Inside

Gloomsayers be damned—new beginnings are what this town is all about, whether it’s an extreme makeover, a third marriage, a refinanced mortgage, a new pilot, a new Pilates class, a revitalized nightlife district.

To the list of All Things New you may add this new column, the Inside Track, which will follow the fast-paced world of casting offices—those exclusive koi ponds at the edge of the city’s vast talent pool, to which few are called and precious fewer called back. Hirings and firings, assistants and associates, dish and digression—you’ll find it all here in the Inside Track. If you have any tips or quibbles, I’m easily reached at insidetrack@showfax.com.

To give you some idea who I am and why you should care, you can click the photo or link above to read my bio. The crucial credit on the resumé is that I was hired in 1993 to found a West Coast version of New York’s venerable actors’ trade Back Stage, and only left the editorship of the successful Back Stage West a month ago.

In the intervening years, I got to know the struggles and triumphs, the passions and pitfalls, of the talent trade, from scammy agents and bootlegged breakdowns to casting coups and unlikely discoveries. I covered theatre, film, and television from just about every possible angle, but mainly from the jobbing actor’s point of view. I think this perspective will serve me well in digging for the information actors will want to read about the people they want to read for.

Crucial to this column is the input of Breakdown Services’ field reps Brian Roberts, Dave Becker, and Gerard Marin.

Without further ado, I invite you inside the Inside Track.

Recoupling

After doing some serious recasting from pilot to series bow, Coupling CDs Sharon Soble and Brett Goldstein have been recast themselves. Sitcom casting veteran Brian Myers (Seinfeld, Just Shoot Me) has taken over casting duties on NBC’s already challenged sex comedy; sure, it bowed to decent numbers last week in the coveted, can’t-lose Thursday night slot following Will & Grace, but reviews and buzz have been brutal. The lesson here? When you fire and replace half the cast and you’re still not happy, then you fire the people who fired and replaced half the cast… Could the show’s problem possibly be in another department?

“Monk” Move

CFB Casting has taken over casting duties on the Emmy-winning Tony Shalhoub starrer Monk, cast last season by Meg Liberman, Cami Patton, and Sandi Logan at Liberman/Patton. CFB’s Amy Britt, Anya Colloff, and Loni Hammerman are casting Monk from offices at Renmar Studios, while Colloff and Britt are handling UPN’s Jake 2.0 from its production offices on Centinela in West L.A.

Yes, observant readers, CFB stands for Colloff, Fishman, and Britt. Longtime casting partner Jennifer Fishman left the office earlier this year to raise a family; the “F” remains no doubt out of respect—also because it’s the brand name the company is known by (it made its name casting Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, among other shows).

Liberman/Patton, located in midtown L.A., still handles such sitcoms as Grounded for Life and King of Queens.

Warners Satellite

Television is supposed to be where the good, steady jobs are. But this time of year, with all the new fall shows duking it out for ratings advantage in key demographics, is not the season for casting directors to take on any extra mortgages. A show’s Nielsen ratings one night can mean you’ll be packing up your office tomorrow. The WB’s new Cain-and-Abel drama One Tree Hill had a shaky debut, for instance, but it’s held on since. So for the moment its CDs, Susie Glicksman and Alex Wald, can rest just a little easier in their offices on Forest Lawn Blvd., near but not too near the Warners lot.

Indeed, this pleasant, modest office complex (also the location of the voiceover reps of the Tisherman Agency) has become a sort of Warners casting satellite in the past few months since the studio decentralized its casting department. Casting vps Mary Buck, Tony Sepulveda, and Wendi Matthews are still on the lot, assisted by Lisa Loia and Tony Birkley. Also on-site are the casting offices of the John Wells Productions shows ER and The West Wing (anyone not know who casts those shows?). But at the newish offsite offices are independents Kevin Scott and Monica Swann (All About the Andersons, All of Us, My Wife and Kids), Dee Dee Bradley (Smallville), and Phyllis Huffman (MOWs and Clint Eastwood films, including Mystic River). Glicksman and Wald are assisted by Elisha Gruer, whose previous credits include assisting in Rick Millikan’s office on The X-Files.

Double trouble

Casting director Dean Fronk, of Pemrick/Fronk Casting in Sherman Oaks, just taught us a new word: “double banger.” He used it casually in conversation to describe negotiations with cast members on writer/director James Hunter’s rap-themed indie Back in the Day, to star Ja Rule and Ving Rhames. Our mind raced: Was this slang for a particularly strong cocktail? For some kind of sausage link? For a threesome? So we just asked: It’s nothing so saucy, of course. It’s simply the term for an actor’s trailer when said trailer has been partitioned into a “double,” which, Fronk said, can be common on low-budget films. He’s even heard of “triple bangers,” and on some soundstages, something called—we had our notebook out by now—built-in “dressing rooms.” We’ll keep you posted on these developments in the fascinating language of the business of show.

But at least now you know enough that when the director takes you aside on the set and tells you to meet him back at your honey wagon, you can correct him and say, “You mean my double banger.”

On second thought, maybe you’d better not say that.

New to town file

Pixie Monroe, she swears, is her real name. She hails from Washington, D.C., where she assisted location casting director Carlin Davis on such films as Minority Report and Tuck Everlasting. Since here in Los Angeles, Monroe has done extras casting on Malibu Spring Break and Karm Police, and worked as a Women in Film mentee under Dreamworks’ Leslee Feldman. Monroe is gearing up for her first casting director job on a new film called Sweetwater, a period piece about the Women’s Air Force Service Program during WWII, directed by Christian Davidson, to star Gretchen Mol.

Really now, where did she get the name?

“When I was born, my parents said, ‘She looks like a little pixie,’ and it’s a nickname I’ve had since birth,” she said. Monroe said she’ll set up an office and release breakdowns when Sweetwater gets off the ground.

Equestrian Time

Melissa Skoff, who cast JAG for seven seasons, is taking a sabbatical from her casting career to pursue her love of horses, whom she buys and cares for. She’s also commuting back and forth from Nashville, pursuing another love of hers, country music. Skoff’s taste for twang was reportedly the reason such country stars as Trisha Yearwood and Ty Herndon landed guest star gigs on JAG. Susan Bluestein, who was already casting the spinoff Navy NCIS, has taken over Skoff’s JAG duties, as well.