It's a nice thought, and yes, I know exactly what you mean, but unfortunately, that's not what this was.

I just heard from the president of the group, who also auditioned: the director cast *all* his own friends and a lot of people whom he cast three years ago when he did "Seussical" for us - and only *one* person whom we consider to be a regular member of the group was cast in a leading role (and in fact, she was effectively "pre-cast" and although I love her to pieces, she can't sing the role of Fraulein Schneider).

I was on director search committee when we *interviewed* him, and we specifically talked about the problems we had last time when he did this, loading the cast with his groupies, and he sat there and fucking LIED about not doing it again.