This week cable networks were upfront and center—that is, they held their annual meetings, called “upfronts,” with advertisers in New York. These are where they roll out their next season’s offerings and pitch the value of their airtime. (Remember when the appeal of cable was that it had no, or very few, commercials? Now, in return for the purportedly “infinite” choices of cable, we get to pay and we get the ads. Hmm.)

The news unveiled at these upfronts made the trades, but it also showed up in this week’s Breakdowns, with the renewal of two shows whose casting demands are hearteningly diverse and extensive: Lifetime’s Strong Medicine and HBO’s Carnivàle.

Lori Sugar is casting the hospital drama Strong Medicine from the show’s production office in Culver City, after a split with co-casting director Judith Holstra last year. (Holstra is now located in Studio City, finishing up the casting of the UPN pilot Silverlake, which I wrote about in my Feb. 26 column.) And the first Breakdown out of the gate looks promising: 17 roles for a single episode.

Meanwhile, Carnivàle CDs John Papsidera and Wendy O’Brien just relocated their Automatic Sweat office from an inviting but cozy space in Beverly Hills (see my Oct. 24, 2003 column) to a bigger space “east of Culver City,” as O’Brien put it when I called her. Well, that’s one way to describe the mid-city area around Washington Blvd., Fairfax, and the 10 Freeway. “There’s not a whole lot around here,” O’Brien admitted. All I know of the area are a couple of small theatres—2100 Square Feet, the Black Dahlia Theatre, and Stage 52—as well as the cool club, Fais Do-Do, and, of course, the original Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles.

There was some question last season whether Carnivàle would be back; reviews and ratings hadn’t been stellar, but the show did garner a following for its dark, Depression-era Dust Bowl traveling freak show. The only recent mention of Carnivàle I saw in the trades was a mention in comparison to HBO’s grimy new Western series, Deadwood, which the network announced it would reup after just its second blockbuster episode; the comparison wasn’t favorable, in terms of Carnivàle’s opening viewership numbers last season.

But the network is giving the circus trucks at least one more run around the track, and that’s good news for quirky character types, particularly those who can do period. To my eye, this means one thing: Some of L.A. theatre’s best, brightest, but often hard-to-place actors might find a TV home. Sure enough, the likes of John Fleck and Cynthia Ettinger appeared in the first season. Ettinger, as a busty middle-aged cooch dancer, will be back next season.

“I think we’ll wanna keep the freak factor,” O’Brien said of the new season, citing a search she’ll have to do for a pinhead. “They’re aiming to keep it really interesting, and luckily casting is going to play a big part in that. There’s some creepy stuff coming up.”

The first Breakdown lists nine parts, including some new characters who may recur or have multi-episode arcs. O’Brien said that though the new office’s phones were still acting up, she’d begun to receive submissions. She expects this year to be a little easier to cast on one score.

“Last year, because the show wasn’t airing yet, we had to keep explaining to people what the show was about,” O’Brien recalled. “People were coming in in 2003 clothing, speaking ebonics. And we had to say, ‘No, think Depression, Dust Bowl.’ ”

But I recall reading last year’s pilot Breakdowns, and the show’s location and emphasis couldn’t have been clearer. Which just proves something I’ve heard again and again from casting directors: People don’t read the whole Breakdown, let alone the script.

“Yeah, the directors would turn to me and say, ‘How do they not know?’” O’Brien said. “I think it will be better this year.”

And we wonder why the most-repeated advice from casting directors is: Be prepared.

Pilot fadeout

Though most of the network “upfronts” aren’t until later in May, pilot season is winding down. Typically the one-hour dramas cast and shoot earlier, and the three-camera sitcoms later; indeed, the only pilots that are still being pulled together right now are half-hour sitcoms, like the Jeff Goldblum vehicle My 11:30, which Leslie Litt is casting, or the chef comedy Taste, which Tracy Lilienfield is casting.

Over at the Studio City offices of Eileen Mack Knight, who casts the series Bernie Mac and The Proud Family (see my Nov. 7, 2003 column), they’re just wrapping up casting on a pilot presentation for NBC called Beverly Hills S.U.V., about a competitive car dealership with a number of outsized personalities. They’ve filled the show’s diverse cast—Henry Winkler is the only name attached—and are now just looking for a middle-aged Korean man who speaks fluent Korean for a part as a customer.

“We pretty much got everyone we wanted,” said casting associate Kamala Thomas. Among the hard-to-fill roles: Josh, the son of the dealership’s absentee owner, Farhad. Both Josh and Farhad were described as Israelis, though the Breakdown advised, “Please submit Middle-Eastern talent—but don’t limit yourself to Israeli.” The actor they found, Aron Kader, is a standup whose act is based on his own fraught background: He’s a Palestinian Israeli. (A typical Kader riff: “The problem in the Middle East is that the Jews and Arabs think they’re God’s chosen people. If you are God’s chosen people, why is there nothing but war and death over there? Look around, you’re in the desert! I mean, have you been to Barbados or Hawaii? It’s gorgeous over there. Maybe the Samoans are the chosen people. Have you thought of that?”) The director on the pilot is sitcom master James Burrows (Cheers, Will & Grace), the writer/creator Larry Wilmore (Bernie Mac, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air).

Knight and Thomas also worked this season on a pilot for UPN called Second Time Around, starring Nicole Ari Parker, and now they’re looking at hiatus. But they are casting a play for Christopher Hart’s Malibu Stage Company: Side Man, Warren Leight’s period drama about a jazz musician and his estranged family life. It’s the first small-theatre rendition of the play (Malibu Stage is under the Equity 99-Seat Plan), which debuted locally at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2002 with Dennis Christopher, Mare Winningham, and J.D. Cullum in the leads.

Busy Pixie

This was a week to catch up with folks I’ve spoken to before. In addition to O’Brien and Knight, I also spoke to someone I wrote about in my very first “Inside Track” column (Oct. 3, 2003). That was recent L.A. arrival Pixie Monroe—hard to forget a name like that—who had previously assisted casting directors in the Washington, D.C. market.

She called me recently to update me on her progress: She’s now in the Hollywood Camera Building in Burbank (“James Cameron’s old offices,” she told me), and she’s about to go into pre-production on Sweetwater, a period piece about the Women’s Air Force Service Program during WWII. Gretchen Mol is attached. She’s been lining up the rest of the leads, she said, and plans to release a Breakdown for the other roles when pre-production begins. She said she recently finished casting the Jeff Fahey vehicle Corpses (not to be confused with the sequel to Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses, which is titled The Devil’s Rejects and is currently being cast by Monika Mikkelsen). And she has another film, The Other Side of the Island, about to start up, as well as one she’s producing, called Caesar, that will shoot in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

It’s a busy office, in other words, and she’ll hold a sort of office-warming party and networking shindig next week at the space.

She gave me a few interesting details about Sweetwater: “There are 79 speaking roles, plus all the extras roles. And we’ll probably also have casting offices out of the studios at the location, in Las Colinas, Texas.” The studio facility near Dallas has an interesting past: “That’s where Barney was filmed for many years.”

From singing dinosaurs to female pilots—clearly, you don’t mess with Texas.

Kanner’s commitment

Ellie Kanner is also someone I’ve spoken to before, though not for this column. She’s best known for casting the pilots of Friends, Sex and the City, and The Drew Carey Show, among  others, and for authoring two excellent trade paperbacks, Next! An Actor’s Guide to Auditioning and How Not to Audition.

Casting has treated Ellie well, but it’s the “director” part of her title that she’s been looking to explore. So she’s been seeking as much directing work as she can: She recently returned from Vancouver, where she directed an episode of The Dead Zone.

And just this week she released a Breakdown for Committed, a SAG Modified Low Budget feature about love among the institutionalized. She hasn’t hired a casting director—she can take care of that just fine, thanks—and in fact doesn’t plan to hold any casting sessions for the film’s many roles, except possibly for some kids’ parts.

“We have offers out to people I’ve worked with,” Kanner told me. “I love auditioning new people, but unfortunately I don’t have time to do that for this project.” If she’s not seeking new faces, why did she put out the Breakdown? Well, as extensive as her casting files and her memory banks are, she said, “I still need to be reminded of people I haven’t worked with in years.”

Her colleagues Dori Zuckerman and Cathy Henderson are letting her use their office in Encino to collect submissions, and to hold any sessions she might need to hold.

Among the commitments that impinge on Ellie’s time is her new baby. I wondered, was she able to take the baby along to Vancouver?

“I couldn’t this time,” she said. “It was so freezing up there. I certainly will the next time, I missed her so much. This film will be shooting in L.A., so I can come home.”

I have an image of Ellie directing with a Baby Bjorn papoose on her back. After all, who would want to argue with a woman who’s got a baby on board?