What Is a Producer Session (and How to Prepare for One)

Your agent’s email is short: “Producer session Tuesday, 11:40. Same sides.” The pre-read was a week ago in a small office with one casting associate and a camera. Now there’s a new word in the subject line, and with it a new set of worries. Who are these producers? Will they want something different? Should you be doing more?

The short version: a producer session is the round where the people who make the decision see your work, either in the room or on tape. It is a callback in everything but name. What got you here is the read you already gave, so your job is to give it again, cleaner and fully learned, and to be ready to change it the moment someone asks. Here is where the session sits, who you will meet, and how to prepare.

Where the producer session sits in casting

For screen work, casting usually narrows in stages. Veteran casting director Marci Liroff lays them out in a post on the four levels of auditions: the general meeting, the pre-read, the callback or producer/director session, and finally the network and studio test. The producer session is level three.

The pre-read is the casting director’s round. In her guide to the phases of TV pilot testing, Liroff puts it simply: “First, you read for me.” If she likes that read, she brings you in for the producers and director, and if that goes well, you test. For a pilot, the studio test means a contract signed in advance and a room of about 20 executives.

So a producer session means a casting director has already chosen you as one of the actors worth showing to the people who hire. You’re not auditioning to be noticed anymore. You’re auditioning to be the answer.

Producer session or callback?

In practice, a producer session is a kind of callback. The difference is who is watching. A plain callback might be the casting director seeing you again, perhaps with new pages. A producer session adds the creative team: the producers and the director. In the UK the step is often called a recall, and Spotlight’s guide to recalls and casting callbacks notes that “the director or producer may also be present at a recall”.

For general callback prep (new sides, outfits, a 24-hour plan), our guide on how to prepare for a callback covers it. This piece is about what changes when the deciders are watching.

Who is in the room, and who isn’t

A producer session can look like two very different days. Liroff writes that at this level the director and producers are sometimes in the room, and sometimes casting simply re-tapes your audition with nobody else there. In the second version, the casting director tapes you again and sends the take to the producers, who watch it later. You may walk in expecting a panel and find the same associate and the same camera.

Don’t let that fool you into a looser read. The tape is the room, and the people watching it are casting the part. Play to your reader as you would with a full table behind them.

When the table is full

If they’re there in person, you’ll see the casting director, who brought you in, plus some mix of the creative team, such as producers and the director. Not everyone will look up. Some will be writing notes, checking the next actor’s résumé, or watching a monitor instead of you. None of that is a verdict.

The casting director is still your ally in the room. They’ve already pitched you, so direct any question to them. For more on what casting does around this round, see what a casting director actually does.

Bring the read that got you here

The advice from casting directors like Liroff is to stay consistent. Liroff is direct about it in her four-levels post: take in all the information and direction the casting director gave you at the pre-read and bring it, and “make sure you don’t make any major changes to your reading at this point.” Her summary is three words: “Consistency is important.” Spotlight’s recall guide says the same: keep the same choices you made in the first audition.

The reason is practical. Casting brought you to the producers because of a specific read. A new interpretation makes casting look like they misjudged you and hands the producers something nobody asked for.

Liroff tells a cautionary story about this in a post titled “Always Trust Your Casting Director”. She’d prepared a young actress with the director’s notes for her read in front of the director, including a simple sparring moment. In the room, the actress did, in Liroff’s words, “exactly what I told her not to do” with the scene, then turned the sparring into a full kickboxing routine. The director, she writes, “was less than pleased.” Her advice: bring your casting director’s notes into your coaching sessions, and tell your coach if they’re steering you away from them.

Write the pre-read down

Consistency is only possible if you remember what you did. A week and three other auditions later, details blur. After every pre-read, write down your choices: who you were talking to, what you wanted, where the scene turned, any note casting gave you, and what you wore. Our free audition tracker has room for those notes, so they’re waiting when the producer session email comes.

Consistent doesn’t mean frozen

Here’s the tension. They want the read you gave, and they also want to know whether you can change it. A producer session may be the first time the director gets to direct you, and a note is how they find out what working with you will be like. An Acting Magazine explainer on notes, adjustments, and redirects notes that redirects “aren’t necessarily a bad thing”. They’re a chance to show you’re flexible enough to take direction.

So prepare two things: the read you’ll give first, fixed and specific, and the freedom to play it other ways. The way to get that freedom is to know the words so well that changing the intention doesn’t shake them loose. If the lines are still a little shaky, every note becomes a memory test, and you’ll protect the words instead of taking the direction.

Practice taking a note on a tiny exchange

Try it on the opening of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, where Helmer calls out to Nora from his room:

HELMER: Is that my little lark twittering out there?

NORA: Yes, it is!

HELMER: Is it my little squirrel bustling about?

NORA: Yes!

A Doll’s House, Act 1, translated by R. Farquharson Sharp, in the public-domain Project Gutenberg text.

Play Nora’s two answers once as you’d naturally choose. Then play them again for each of these notes, as if a director had just said it:

1. “She loves this game.” Delight, quick, the answer almost on top of his line.
2. “She’s hiding something.” The cheer is a cover. Something has to be put away before he comes out.
3. “She’s tired of being his pet.” The same words, a little flatter, with the second “Yes!” a beat late.

Four short lines, three different marriages. Now do the same with your own sides: pick the two or three notes you’d most expect from the producers (bigger, smaller, a different want, a different relationship) and run each once. Your first choice stays your first choice. The others are there so a note doesn’t feel like an ambush.

How to take the note when it comes

When the director or a producer gives you an adjustment, listen to the whole thing before you start nodding. If it isn’t clear, ask one short question about what they want, not about how to do it. Then make the change big enough to see. The common trap is a note taken so politely that the second take looks like the first. They aren’t checking that you heard them. They’re checking that you can change.

Keep your pre-read choices unless the note replaces them. A new direction from the room outranks anything casting told you before. Liroff’s warning is about changes you make on your own, not changes the room asks for. Our guide on how to take direction goes further into reading what a director really means.

What comes after a producer session

On a pilot, a strong producer session can lead to a test. Liroff’s pilot guide says it plainly: “If you do well in this audition, we’ll test you.” Before a test, your agent works out your deal in advance, known as a test deal. Casting director Ramani Leah, CSA, explains in a guide to studio and network tests that there may also be one or more work sessions with the casting director or director first. Use them to ask questions and try things.

Depending on the project, what follows may be an offer, a test, or a chemistry read with the actors being considered opposite you. Our explainer on what a chemistry read is covers that step. You may also hear that you’re pinned or on hold; our guide to pinned, avail, hold, and booked explains what each one means.

And sometimes nothing happens. That’s ordinary. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ profile of actors lists auditioning “in front of directors, producers, and casting directors” as part of the job, and notes that actors may audition for many roles before getting one. Getting in front of producers is itself a step forward with that casting office.

A prep plan for the days before

Assuming you have a few days and the same sides as the pre-read, here’s one order to work in.

1. When the email arrives. Confirm the time and place, ask whether the sides have changed, and ask whether the session is in person or taped. Download any new pages.
2. That evening. Find your pre-read notes: choices, notes from casting, outfit. Lay the outfit out. Spotlight suggests choosing an outfit closest to the one you wore before.
3. Three days out. Get the scene fully off book by testing yourself from the other character’s cues, not by rereading. If you have the full script, read it once for story.
4. Two days out. Run the pre-read version until it’s easy, then run the note drill: one take for each of two or three likely adjustments.
5. The night before. One run from cues, one run for the choices. Stop at a set time and sleep.
6. In the room. Give them the read casting liked. Take any note fully. Keep the pages in your hand; Liroff notes you can hold the sides at this level.

Running the scene when you have no reader

Both drills above want a second voice that says the other lines the same way every time while you change yours. A friend on a video call works, and so does a voice memo of the other lines with gaps for your answers. Our guide to the audition reader explains what the person opposite you is there to do on the day.

For the note drill you need the other lines read the same way every time while you change yours. In Offbook, realistic voices read the other character and wait for your line, and scene looping restarts the scene from the top, ready for the next adjustment. Pause when you need a breath between takes.

Whatever you use, keep the order: the read that got you here, then the words, then the notes. Your job isn’t to surprise the producers. It’s to be the actor casting described.

Questions actors ask

Is a producer session the same as a callback?

It’s a type of callback. A callback just means you’re being seen again. A producer session means the people who decide (producers and the director) are watching, in the room or on the tape afterward.

Should I wear the same outfit as the pre-read?

Usually, yes, unless casting asked for something different. The people who chose to bring you back have a picture of you in mind. Something close to what you wore before helps them see the same actor again. For first-round outfits, see what to wear to an audition.

Do I need to be off book for a producer session?

Liroff’s guidance for this level is to be off book and connecting with your reader, while holding the sides. Knowing the scene cold is what frees you to take a note. The pages in your hand are there for the moment your mind slips. For how sides and the full script fit together, see memorize your sides or read the whole script.

What if the producer session is on tape?

Prepare exactly as if the producers were in the room. Liroff writes that some producer sessions are a re-tape with only casting present. Give the same read, take any note casting relays from the producers, and treat the camera as the table. If you’re taping it yourself at home, our guide to self-taping alone covers setup.