A LOVING TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL SHURTLEFF
AUTHOR OF AUDITION

By Ginger Howard Friedman

Michael Shurtleff, the brilliant acting teacher and one of Broadway and Hollywood’s most sought after casting directors and author of the bestselling book on acting, Audition, passed away in January 2007. To mark the first anniversary of his death, we offer a loving tribute in his memory written by a close freind and colleague, Ginger Howard Friedman.

I met Michael at a posting of the bans party in New York. I looked across the room and saw a blond-headed man talking to a couple. In his right hand was chopped liver on a cracker and in his left was a drink. I observed that the chopped liver was sliding off the cracker and was about to fall into his drink so I approached him and said, “Excuse me, sir, but your chopped liver is about to fall into your drink.” That was our first of thousands of bouts of laughter, the beginning of a life long friendship and the changing of my life forever and for the better. I became his assistant which afforded me the opportunity to learn everything about the casting system. I spent many summer weekends at his beautiful Fire Island home, discussing theatre and the plays he was writing. Aside from becoming dance partners (he said I was the only one who could keep up with him on the dance floor – we danced our way from New York to France and Italy teaching the French how to disco) I learned all about casting plays and films, especially when he cast my husband’s first play, SCUBA DUBA, and I watched him teach his exciting classes (I had studied acting with Stella Adler), and celebrated with him on the publication of his great book, AUDITION, which I advised him to name. The guidelines on those pages have changed and enhanced the audition and rehearsal process throughout North America and beyond. We had our disagreements and parted company for a while but with the intervention of mutual friends, we got back together – at a New York discothèque!

There was great sadness when he packed up and moved to Los Angeles. A few friends and I took him to the airport and said our goodbyes with tears flowing down our faces. He had told me to take over teaching How To Audition and Scene Study and to become a full-fledged casting director and he convinced me that I could indeed succeed at it. I had deep doubts but I believed in everything he said so I gave it a go. He was right. I did become a casting director on my own and it’s been thirty years of teaching three semesters each and every year in New York, in over 20 colleges and universities as a guest teacher, also in Toronto and other Canadian cities and universities, and I became the author of three acting books; the forward in the first one is written by Michael. We exchanged coasts a couple of times over the years where I taught in his Burbank acting studio and lived in his beautiful Hollywood Hills home. I was so busy teaching and writing that I gave up casting but continue to consult. Toronto casting directors ask me to recommend actors who I have worked with in my classes.

I owe my entire career to Michael as countless others do; many of them major movie stars. I miss him but he lives on through his book, his video and all the loving, crazy, outrageous, hilarious memories I will treasure forever including the chopped liver and the cracker that brought us together. I am grateful to have met him and to have had this wonderful man in my life and all the laughter and tears we shared all those years. Actors everywhere continue to benefit from his brilliant book.

— Ginger Howard Friedman is the author of THE PERFECT MONOLOGUE, CALLBACK, & CASTING DIRECTORS’ SECRETS. A transplanted New Yorker, she currently teaches acting in Toronto and is a guest teacher in Canadian colleges and universities throughout Canada.