Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is pleased to announce that Raiyon Hunter, currently the Associate Casting Director for Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, has been appointed CTC’s Casting Director. She will join CTC on May 22.
“We are thrilled to welcome Raiyon Hunter to Children’s Theatre Company as our new Casting Director,” said CTC Artistic Director Peter C. Brosius. “Raiyon brings tremendous energy, insight and commitment to this position and is a truly remarkable young leader. She has extensive experience from her time as Associate Casting Director at the Alliance Theatre, and from her casting work at St. Louis Repertory Theatre. We know she will be an incredible asset to this theatre and to our entire community.”
“I am excited to support CTC’s pursuits to open access, and craft opportunities to recruit young artists who are passionate, imaginative contributors to this field,” said Hunter. “I look forward to engagement that will allow me to expand and deepen my work in casting.”
Raiyon Hunter is an actress, director, producer, and arts administrator from New Orleans, Louisiana. She currently works in the Artistic department of the Alliance Theatre (Atlanta, GA) as a Spelman Leadership Fellow and has worked on a multitude of shows in varying capacities ranging from Casting Associate to Director on productions such as Do You Love the Dark, Darlin Cory, Bina’s Six Apples, Good Bad People, Confederates, and more. The Alliance's Spelman Leadership Fellowship is a field-leading career development program designed to give participants experience in artistic or executive leadership in the not-for-profit cultural sector and is tailored to support the interests of the recipient. Additionally, she has been in residency at Oregon Shakespeare Festival under Nataki Garrett and The Repertory Theater of St. Louis, where she worked in casting and as an assistant director under Hana Sharif. She is a proud graduate of Spelman College.
I had a chance to learn more in this interview.
Can you share a little bit about what a casting director does?
Absolutely, and thank you for asking. I think most people think that Casting Directors solely select the persons who will play the role in the productions, but actually a lot of our job is collaborating with directors and understanding their vision of the show and each character. Once I gain an understanding of their direction, they would like the production to go in, I then begin going through our lists of actors who may fit the role and start recruiting actors to put in front of the director who then makes the final decision.
What do you love about your role as a casting director?
My favorite part about being a Casting Director is getting to know phenomenal artists and watching their growth. Without the artists this industry would lose a potent amount of love, craft, and development. Each artist comes with their own lived experience which deepens the work in our industry and makes for such rich and important art.
What drew you to this position with CTC?
CTC is such a remarkable theatre. In addition to its notability, every single employee here is driven by the missions and values of the organization. There aren’t many organizations genuinely dedicated to training and providing resources for the next generation of artists. The arts are such an important outlet for anyone, adult and young performers alike, so to even be a small part of their process and time in this industry is one of the reasons I do what I do.
How can families encourage a love of theater in their kids?
Bring them to see shows! There’s nothing like interacting with a really good piece of theater. The reality is, anytime you encourage imagination play you are encouraging your kids to love the theater. So, my suggestions would be to role play, have them read books and plays, find theater classes near you, and specifically, come to CTC!
CTC’s 2023-2024 Season of seven productions features two world premieres, Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress and Babble Lab, the international sensation Cookin’ from South Korea, the only Minnesota stop of the national tour of The Carp Who Would Not Quit and Other Animal Stories from Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the return of last year’s sold out production of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, the 3-time Tony Award®-nominated musical A Year With Frog and Toad, and the wildly inventive Alice in Wonderland.
Currently, the World Premiere of An American Tail the Musical is playing at CTC’s UnitedHealth Group Stage thru June 18, 2023. Tickets may be purchase online at childrenstheatre.org/AmericanTail or by calling the ticket office at 612.874.0400. Ticket prices start at $15.
Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is the nation’s largest and most acclaimed theatre for young people and serves a multigenerational audience. It creates theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire for more than 250,000 people annually. CTC is the only theatre focused on young audiences to win the coveted Tony Award® for regional theatre and is the only theatre in Minnesota to receive three Tony® nominations (for its production of A Year with Frog and Toad). CTC is committed to creating world-class productions at the highest level and to developing new works, more than 200 to date, dramatically changing the canon of work for young audiences.
CTC’s engagement and learning programs annually serve more than 93,000 young people and their communities through Theatre Arts Training, student matinees, Neighborhood Bridges, and early childhood arts education programs. ACT One is CTC’s comprehensive platform for access, diversity, and inclusion in our audiences, programs, staff, and board that strives to ensure the theatre is a home for all people, all families, reflective of our community. childrenstheatre.org
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