16 - Bernie Telsey - a podcast by Ken Davenport

Bernard Telsey is a casting director and co-founder of MCC Theater. In the 1980s, he began working for Simon & Kumin Casting as an assistant, then a casting director at Risa Bramon & Billy Hopkins Casting. Shows his company has cast include (Broadway) Rent, Wicked, In the Heights, South Pacific, Hairspray, Rock of Ages, Equus, Legally Blonde, A Catered Affair, The Homecoming, Talk Radio, November, Grey Gardens, The Color Purple, The Rocky Horror Show, All Shook Up, Tarzan, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, (Off-Broadway) reasons to be pretty, 50 Words, Almost an Evening, and De La Guarda. He has cast for several theatre companies including the Atlantic Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, New York Theatre Workshop, Drama Dept, ACT in San Francisco, La Jolla Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Hartford Stage, and Goodman Theatre. Films cast include Rachel Getting Married, Sex and the City, Margin Call, Across the Universe, Dan in Real Life, Pieces of April, Rent.

Rent established Telsey as someone who casts unconventional shows, which got him assigned to cast The Capeman. He is notable for discovering Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Anthony Rapp, and Jesse L. Martin.
Telsey has also served for seven years as the New York Vice-President of the Casting Society of America. Listen to this podcast and hear:

Why a Casting Director is just like a Designer.

What it was like seeing Idina Menzel audition for Rent before she was Idina Menzel.

How talent has changed in the last twenty years.

What Bernie looks for when actors walk in the room.

The difference between casting theater and tv/film.

And oodles more . . .

 
Keep up with me: @KenDavenportBway
www.theproducersperspective.com 
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