Amara thinks a casting is a small party where you don't get to stay very long. She is not entirely wrong.
Here is the whole thing, for the curious: we arrive, we wait on small chairs with other small children, somebody lovely with a clipboard calls her name, and she walks into a room with a paper backdrop. They take one photo of her face, one of her standing, and then they chat to her for ninety seconds. That's it. That is the entire audition.
The chat is the real test. They asked her once what she had for breakfast and got a four-part story involving a dropped spoon, the cat, and a formal apology to the toast. She was booked by the time we reached the bus stop.
What they're checking is simple: can this child be herself with a stranger pointing a camera at her? Some days the answer is no, and that is fine and normal and six. On those days we get the snack anyway and go to the park, because the fastest way to ruin a natural is to make castings feel like exams.
Her current record is four castings, two bookings, and one formal complaint that the waiting room "had no biscuits, only rice cakes". We are working on her rider.