

The first episode makes the audition process seem like mental terrorism. Was it that bad for the show?
Sarah Hay: [Laughs] There's always very high tension with dance auditions! You're in a group, watching the people in the front of the room, hoping you'll get something, anything that will relieve a bit of the stress. For this, everybody in there was thinking 'Is this my big break?' But in auditioning for the show, I actually found the people were a bit more open, and the environment was more intimate than for a ballet audition. I was lucky—I was found right at the end, so I missed the whole cattle call.
You were a dancer suddenly thrown into the world of acting. Were you concerned?
Sarah Hay: I was a bit worried about the emotional scenes, I wondered, 'How am I going to start crying?' But then I found it was often harder to do normal dialogue, just being friendly to people was harder than the crying—let's say for drama, I'm in the right place. I do love to play a role, and right now I'm doing Manon Lascaut [in Kenneth MacMillan's Manon] and I'm really enjoying that! She's a whore, she's sold, she's dying for her love…there's so much anxiety! I'm playing her when I get back to Dresden; thanks to the show, I feel more confident than I have before. Maybe I have a talent I didn't realize!
Sascha Radetsky: Gosh, we wrapped the show in August of 2014, which was ages ago! So it's interesting that all this attention is happening now—when we've moved on to other things. It's not so fresh in our minds and our bodies. I'm doing a little bit of acting, but I can't really say it's going to be a career, or even that I'm really suited to it. It's a whole other craft you have to study and be passionate about. I have other interests; I wouldn't say 'no' to acting—but I'm trying to do some writing, and I have a fellowship at the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts to write some fiction.