I'm going to offer a different piece of advice: don't do it.
The show was
written to be played small, and it works best that way.
I have seen I-don't-know-how-many productions that turn "Downtown" into a number that Cecil B. DeMille would have envied, with all kinds of winos and prostitutes who have that one number to do and nothing much else, and it skews the proportions of the show badly. I have also seen the three girls, who are supposed to remind us of all of those close-harmony "girl group" trios from the early 1960s, expanded to include anywhere from six to eighteen -
eighteen! - girls, all in the name of giving more kids a chance to participate. If that's your need, I would strongly urge you to choose a show that was written for a larger cast, and not try to make this square peg fit into a round hole.
I don't even like it when the six or seven small roles that are supposed to be played by the actor who plays Orin are assigned to other actors, often one per part. These roles are too small to make much impression when divvied up that way, but when one actor plays all of them, it adds to the hilarity as that same face keeps popping up in different guises.
I've seen numerous high-school productions of this show, even adjudicating some of them for festival performances, so I speak from a good bit of experience when I say that this show always works better
smaller. -------------------------------------------
Jeff Grove
Theatre Teacher, Aesthetics Department Chair
Stanton College Preparatory School
Jacksonville FL