davidjcastillo
10 Questions To Ask Your Favorite Dramaturg Today!
Finally, after for years of hard work, I have turned in my final written assignment at Boston University. Of course, that assignment happened to be one of the most challenging: a dramaturgical dossier containing documentation of one’s process when acting as a dramaturg on a contemporary play. In honor of my work, I have compiled […]
Absurdism and Me
I’ll admit it. I’ve become obsessed with the absurd. Which is interesting. Absurdism is something that’s usually relegated to cream-of-the-crop white male writers—individuals who have hammered the American theatre and changed it for, arguably, the better. I think white men are allowed to be absurd without question because of society’s normalization of the white male […]
Being Uninspired
We have a tendency to romanticize inspiration. By “we,” I mean artists. We praise the days we go on long walks and watch the sun set on a river while standing on a bridge that keeps us from drowning. We experience art, hoping to find enough inspiration to create whatever seed our creative mind deems […]
What makes theatre in Boston, ‘Boston theatre’? If anything…
As I find myself at the precipice of preparing for my move to Los Angeles, I am forced to acknowledge the fact that I am also about to leave behind a theatre community that has raised me, and like many familial relationships, I have complicated feelings towards. The individuals that make up Boston’s theatre community are some […]
To the companies who participated in the Ghostlight Project: I’m afraid you’ve already failed.
In the last few weeks, I, like many other actors who will soon graduate from BFA programs across the country, have had my eyes glued to audition postings on Playbill, Backstage, Broadway World—you name it—in the hopes of finding out which plays will be produced on equity stages across the country during the 2017-18 season. […]
“I’ve Realized I Want To Be Famous And I Don’t Know How To Feel About That.”
When I was younger, my little sister and I used to watch movies with my parents every Saturday evening. My dad worked really hard Monday through Friday so I didn’t see him often, and my mom just had a tendency to be sick during the week, making Saturday evenings—one of the few times we were […]
Repeat After Me: Your Audience Is Not Stupid
Dear David J. Castillo, I’ve been thinking a lot about your being an utter waste of space. Now, while I believe that that is true for most people in the world, I think it is especially true because lately, you’ve been acting pretty recklessly. You’d think that after four years of training within a BFA […]
Why is tech week a thing?
Recently, towards the beginning of tech week over at the Charlestown Working Theater where Actors’ Shakespeare Project is producing Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, I overheard my director speaking with our lighting designer about how he wishes that the traditional theatre rehearsal process was not one that separated the actors’ rehearsal from the designers’ construction of the […]
Note to Casting Directors Everywhere: Hire Me
Okay. Let’s get one quick thing straight. I am a second-semester senior in college who is about to—hopefully—graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting. Now, at this moment, there are many things—let’s call them “things”—that plague my mind. Will Moonlight win the 2017 oscar for Best Picture over La La Land? Will I ever pay off […]
How Being Brown is Inherently Political
Recently, I have spent a lot of time questioning what my role is as an actor who cares about equality. How can I be a blank slate that propels a casting director or manager to look at me and see a world of possible roles to play? Can I do that while refusing to be silent […]
Drama Lit Blog 2.0: BU School of Theatre 