It’s not a popular position to take, but the fact remains: most school drama departments should not cast every single student who auditions.

It’s not fun to cut people from a show– no one wants to do do it. But I would argue this “necessary evil,” while necessary, isn’t evil in the least. Far from it, this is actually a position borne out of compassion for everyone involved. You might think it callous or heartless, but at the end of the day, cutting some people is beneficial for a number of reasons.

The most obvious benefit is practical, and in this case, the practical is also the compassionate.

To name some simple realities: School theatre departments are often run on primarily volunteer labor. Directors and staff may get stipends, but these stipends typically work out to a pittance per hour spent in rehearsal, and most people working on the production will probably wind up not being paid at all. These programs are stereotypically underfunded and under-supported by the school district, which means money for props, costumes, scripts, and other necessary materials is tight. A combination of both of these factors means there are often not enough adults around to supervise a large number of actors, and not enough resources to adequately prepare and equip them.

We also have to consider that most musicals are written with professional theatre in mind. This means that most shows are designed to be performed by small casts– the smallest cast possible, as theatre is a business, and producers want to spend as little as possible. While some shows lend themselves well to being expanded to extremely large cast sizes, many simply don’t. There’s also the practical limitations of a given theatre space: there might be room on a stage for over a hundred kids, but not when there’s a full set constructed, or everyone’s in elaborate costumes, or everyone is doing expressive choreography. And even then, is there room in the wings? In the dressing rooms? If there was an emergency, would a backstage area be able to be evacuated easily, or would space be at such a premium that a crush would form?

There’s also the complications associated with rehearsing a cast so large. If you call 100 kids to rehearsal (which would, off the top, be a disaster to try to supervise), how many will be sick on a given day? How much time will need to be dedicated to reviewing choreography or scene work when you’re catering to the individual needs of such a large cast? Will there be time to review and cater to individuals at all?

All signs point to one very clear conclusion: it’s not practical to try to cram more students than a particular program can support into a production. That supportable number will absolutely vary from program to program, but every program has an upper limit, and that limit must be adhered to.

When that upper limit is ignored, you run into two primary issues.

The first is a lack of resources to generally oversee and maintain a cast so large. There is a principal of physical safety to watch out for: is there an adequate number of adults supervising these minors to ensure students are where they should be and not getting into anything dangerous? Is there adequate manpower to corral so many students in a case of emergency? Is there adequate physical space to keep so many actors safe, or might an excess of bodies in the space contribute to physically unsafe situations? (I was once in a production where the staff told our large cast to “run around and make the scene look chaotic,” and we were all sporting the bruises to illustrate that directive.) Even beyond physical safety concerns, you have to ask yourself how well you think a staff will be able to pinpoint and address, say, a bullying issue with a hundred kids in a room at a time– probably not very well, right?

The second issue is a lack of resources to help so many individual actors thrive. Ultimately, yes, you might have the ability to put a hundred kids on a stage. Maybe they don’t need fancy costumes. Maybe they don’t need elaborate props. But at the end of the day, will each actor receive the individualized attention they deserve to make the show special? Will each student feel seen? Will their time on stage be meaningful, or will they feel like a face in a very large crowd? Will they feel like their time in the program mattered?

Again, the deciding factor here is what resources a program has. If the program has the resources and manpower to have a stellar ratio of adults to children, and the space and foresight to plan rehearsals with that many bodies without it being a zoo, then I suppose there’s no reason a show couldn’t have a theoretically almost infinite number of kids in it.

Let’s be real, though. A lot of programs do not have the resources to adequately support such large casts. And in these cases, everyone in the production suffers. The production staff will be overworked. The actors will not have access to the coaching and education a school production promises. The larger ensemble will have loud, chaotic, stressful rehearsals, where they may not feel particularly important or welcomed.

I think it’s important to ask: in this case, who is this big cast for?

Is it for the benefit of the program, to be able to sell more tickets?– maybe, but then you’re bartering a better experience and possibly the safety of students for ticket sales.

Is it for the benefit of the educators and staff? Maybe it pumps their egos, to be able to brag about such a large program. But they will be more stressed and face burnout more quickly, and this will also lead to a less positive experience for the actors.

Is it for the benefit of the parents? Parents might think they want to see every kid who auditions getting a place in the show, but when their child only has 5 minutes of stage time, they might realize how unrealistic it is to presume there is a place for an infinite number of kids in a show.

And it’s certainly not for the benefit of the actors. Yes, actors might be disappointed if they don’t get cast. Kids will also definitely be disappointed to play Tree Number Seventeen in the back of one scene.

Now, obviously, it’s not that casting everyone is without benefit. There are a lot of reasons directors want to cast everyone: it helps grow their program, it gets more kids into the arts, it provides kids with a social and creative outlet they might not otherwise have, and, well, it will sell more tickets.

I’m sympathetic to these arguments, I really am. And they so often come from people with truly incredible intentions, who only want to support and uplift as many actors as possible– and that’s awesome. These good intentions, though, do not negate the litany of undesirable and even potentially unsafe implications of casting beyond your means. If you are a director who wants to cast everybody, you must take a good, long look at your staff, your funding, your volunteer force, and your physical space, and truly ask yourself if there is a way that committing to a huge cast will be a detriment to the development of your actors and your program in the long run.

It’s tempting to cast everybody, a lot of people will want the school to cast everybody, and casting everybody feels good. But will it feel good– for anyone involved– in the long term, when there are more people than is physically safe or emotionally supportive in a rehearsal room?

Maybe there exists a unicorn school theatre program where this isn’t a problem. The rest of us, though, have to be honest with ourselves. It is worth the momentary heartache of cutting some actors in order to salvage a better overall experience for those who are cast. The outcome is ultimately superior for all.