One of my colleagues back in film school was a former child actor whose biggest credit was as a regular on the Michael Landon-produced Father Murphy, the Little House spinoff starring Merlin Olsen as the kindly prairie pastor. I don’t remember much of what my friend told me about his child acting days, but one thing stuck with me: Landon liked kids who could shed real tears on cue, and for whatever reason, my friend said, he had that skill as a child.

(Actually, I wouldn’t want to speculate too much about why my friend could cry so easily. Ever since I heard the excellent actress Sarah Polley, who began as a child actor in Canada, expound her theory that the only kids who can pull this off have had some kind of terrible trauma, as she did—her mother died when she was 11—I’ve wondered about the element of voyeurism involved in watching young people, who often aren’t yet able to separate real from imaginary, go through authentic emotional states on-camera.)

Crying on cue is indeed one of those acting enigmas that separates mere craft from mysterious art. Last year, in a post-screening discussion I hosted with Far From Heaven star Julianne Moore and director Todd Haynes, Haynes marvelled at Moore’s ability to produce heartbreakingly believable crying jags, comparing such scenes to “money” shots in porn—both are physiological processes that can’t be faked for the camera.

I bring all this up because last week the series Joan of Arcadia had to cast the two-line role of a man who loses his wife in a senseless tragedy based on last year’s horrific Santa Monica Farmer’s Market accident, when a car driven by an 85-year-old man careened through the market, killing 10 and injuring 25. A note appended to the role of “Angry Man” said, in all capitals, “THIS IS A SMALL BUT HIGHLY CHARGED EMOTIONAL ROLE—MUST BE ABLE TO GET TO REAL TEARS.”

Karen P. Morris, casting assistant to CD Vicki Rosenberg and her associate, Chuck McCollum, admitted that it was a tough role to cast.

“It was hard to get people for such a small role who had the kind of emotional range to pull it off; usually the actors who have that emotional range are guests stars.” The CDs wanted to see those real tears in the audition room, she confirmed. To help the actors in the pre-reads, she said that McCollum, who might normally chat with them before their audition, skipped the small talk this time, since he knew they needed the time in the waiting room to “work themselves up emotionally.”

The part eventually went to fortysomething actor John C. McDonnell. His imdb bio mentions that he worked for years as a standup comic—which only proves that it does help to have had some real pain and trauma in one’s life to get the tears ducts flowing.

The (Stage) Shows Must Go On

“You can’t rollerskate in a buffalo herd,” Roger Miller once memorably sang, in his ode to the obvious impossibility of certain activities (including the indisputable axiom, “You can’t change film with a kid on your back”). Had he lived in Hollywood, he might have added, “You can’t cast a play during pilot season.”

“It’s getting harder and harder and harder and harder every year to get people to go out of town,” said Nicole Arbusto, who with her casting partner Joy Dickson is trying to fill the male lead in Missouri Repertory Theatre’s production of Lilliom, the play upon which the musical Carousel was based. Hard as it is, though, “We can always find someone who’s interested.”

Arbusto and Dickson are among a select few L.A. film and TV casting directors who also keep one hand in regional theatre casting. Locally, they’ve worked with the now-defunct Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theatre and with the Taper’s non-mainstage projects (Taper, Too and the New Works Festival). Their main regional client is Seattle Rep, for whom they recently cast a production of Lisa Loomer’s Living Out, a play about L.A. domestic workers and their employers which played last year at the Mark Taper Forum and Off-Broadway. The L.A. talent pool was helpful, Arbusto said, in filling the cast’s many Latino roles, which would have been a tougher challenge with Seattle’s demographics.

The CDs know from pilot season: They’re currently casting the Hawaii-set Big Island (which I wrote about in my Jan. 17 column), and are perhaps best known for a series of well-cast independent films: Interview With the Assassin, The Business of Strangers, The Tao of Steve, and Destiny Turns on the Radio. Last year they handled casting duties on the short-lived sitcom The Mullets.

I don’t know about you, but it’s somehow nice to know that actors aren’t the only folks in L.A. who find a way to alternate theatre gigs with film and TV.

Asian Girlfriends

Speaking of theatre/TV crossovers, Pasadena Playhouse artistic director Sheldon Epps is among the theatre helmers who regularly moonlights on TV, with episodes of Fraiser and Friends under his belt.

Another show that often gets his attention is the chronically underrated UPN sitcom Girlfriends. He’s listed as the director for an upcoming episode whose premise caught my eye: There’s a Breakdown for four Asian-American “cosmo-girls” described as “an Asian-American version of our Girlfriends,” right down to the stars’ four types: “Cordial, Flighty, Materialistic, and Sassy.” This quartet has just two scenes, but the joke is that they seem to be haunting the series’ regulars by showing up wherever they are—or rather, beating them to their “regular” locations at their favorite nightspots.

Casting director Robi Reed-Hume’s associate, Andrea Lisa, said she’s received “a ton” of submissions, agreeing that there are many under-employed young Asian-American hotties out there. Can a spinoff be far behind?

What a Drag

Nancy Foy’s casting office has learned one lesson about the Breakdowns, or rather, about the folks who read the Breakdowns: Apparently, if you’re looking for female impersonators, agents and managers aren’t the place to go.

A notice last week for Miss Congeniality 2 sought “Female Impersonators” to play celebrities in drag, including Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Patti LaBelle, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Rivers, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, and—well, why not?—Britney Spears. These male performers would also be expected to “act and handle dialogue.”

So how did this Breakdown fare? Foy’s assistant, Bryan Riley, told me that out of 400 submissions for various roles in the film, he probably received about 5 submissions from female impersonators.

“We did get a bunch of different calls from people saying so-and-so knows about a cabaret show somewhere,” said Riley. “I’ll probably have to go out on the weekend and hit a couple of bars, and maybe a scouting trip to Vegas.” He didn’t sound too upset about that—and besides, he said, “We’re not so worried about it. We’re still waiting to get the  next draft of the script.”

When I told him that a mention of the Breakdown in this column might help, but that I wouldn’t include the address here, he laughed and said, “You won’t have to put the address. If you just put the state, they’ll find us.”

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to a number of questions I’ve been getting from “Inside Track” readers, who find out about roles or projects they think they might be right for in this column, and want to know how to reach the casting offices.

I’ll just be clear here that it’s one of the “understandings” I have with the casting community, and with Breakdown Services, that this column is not simply about giving away proprietary casting information, but about shedding some light and insight on the casting trade and hiring trends, and in the process providing leads on interesting new projects you’re free to pursue on your own.

I will also tell you this: The Casting Society of America is a reasonably good way to keep up with nomadic CDs; the CSA number is (323) 463-1925. And, though I’m not here to shill for Breakdown’s products, I personally have found its quarterly CD Directory (the winter one just came out) to be an invaluable resource. It can never be updated frequently enough, since CDs move around so darn much, but supplements are printed every few weeks (they go out free to Directory subscribers, but they’re also available at places like Samuel French and Take One), and what’s more, I’ve always found Breakdown Services itself to be more or less forthcoming with updated information if you call and politely ask for it.

Meals on Wheels

Food and motorcycles aren’t the most natural association I can think of—but then, not all the bulk on your typical biker dude is muscle.

Last week, in what could qualify as a kind of mini-trend, two Breakdowns made the nosh/cycle link. The first one that caught my eye was for a “Charity Event/Spec Pilot” with the evocative title Biker Chef. Explained casting director David Glanzer, the title character is none less than Christopher Coppola, nephew of the famous director (and cousin of that other famous director, Sofia), and brother to Nicolas Cage.

“Chris Coppola is a motorcycle enthusiast, and he’s actually a fairly good cook,” said Glanzer, who released a Breakdown for a sort of “Tonto” role to Coppola’s Lone Ranger. “The premise of the show is that  Chris and his sidekick are two guys who are kind of intimidating-looking—though I wouldn’t say thuggish—who search far and wide for different local specialties in different parts of the country, and they come in and add their own spices. It’s basically a traveling cooking show. The location will be different from week to week.”

The role of the 30- to 40-year-old sidekick is listed as African-American, with the suggestion that an ex-military man would be a good fit. But the most important qualification, said Glanzer, is that the sidekick can “hold his own on a motorcycle. If he can cook, even better still.”

And the charity element? Glanzer explained that the kickoff episode is planned for a restaurant in L.A. with Coppola and some of his celebrity motorcycle enthusiast friends, held as a charity event to raise the show’s profile. While Glanzer emphasized that Coppola is definitely trying to make sure that Biker Chef is his own thing (“He’s very much his own person,” said Glanzer), the celebrity-friend angle is “something the producers have thought of. There are so many actors who are motorcycle enthusiasts, so it would be silly if it didn’t happen occasionally.”

The other food/chopper connection was on a Breakdown released by casting director Michael Sanford for a national McDonald’s commercial seeking “all types of bikers, from hardcore and tattooed to sleek leather types (think Matrix or Blade Runner) to the types that ride the four-wheelers (racers), sport bikes, even the 3-speed tribe types in Japan.” I’m guessing they’ll be ordering their food to go.

Too Much Fun

CD Julie Ashton has earner her rep as the go-to person for sketch comedy and improv casting. In addition to some work on MAD-TV, she cast The Wayne Brady Show (the variety show, not the talk show).

She’s currently working on the Kelsey Grammer-produced pilot, based on a British hit, called The Sketch Show. But her work on Comedy Central’s riotous Cops parody, Reno 911!, may top the list—at least in terms of producing Breakdowns that are hilarious in themselves.

To wit, last week Reno sought an elderly man who spoke Armenian “or a similar language” (what would that be, I wonder?), a bunch of “robot guys” to mimic those silver-painted Venice Beach freaks, a large African-American thug, and a 10-year-old boy who could “fake a seizure.”

Sounds like fun. Indeed, Ashton’s associate, Toni Magon, laughed throughout our conversation, as she explained that the Armenian gent will play the grandfather of a recurring Reno character whose name in the credits is simply “Armenian on Ecstasy”; the “robot guys” will be strutting their stuff in a police lineup, as the cops seek to identify a killer who happened to have been a robot impersonator.

“It’s hilarious,” she said of their daily work. “We had a magician role to cast, and it was great—all these guys came in and did magic shows for us.”

Magon said that most of Reno’s full guest stars come in and “do a whole session with the producers--the whole improv thing.” But for the smaller roles of perps, suspects, and unfortunate bystanders, the quest is for realism—albeit with the exaggerations dictated by the show’s writers.

It sounds like the cops should pay a call to Ashton’s office. That much fun just can’t be legal.