Conventional wisdom holds that any time you gather multiple big-name celebrities in one space in New York, you must also allow room for dozens and dozens of hangers-on, rubberneckers, and, well, celebrity journalists, all of whom will take themselves very seriously. The whole thing can get tiring! So it was a welcome departure offered by the Casting Society of America's Artios Awards on Monday evening at the American Airlines Theater, which was not filled—but not to capacity!—with good-natured, unstressed stars and the casting agents who love to place them. The awards honored casting directors in film, television and theater for their contributions to the field over the last year, and were presented by some gracious (and grateful) actors, among them Zachary Quinto, Anthony Mackie, Christina Ricci, John Slattery, and David Duchovny. PHOTO OF CHRISTINA RICCI, LEFT, COURTESY OF O&M GROUP

Because of a simultaneous ceremony happening in Los Angeles, many of the winners weren't present to accept their awards—a fact the presenters took in stride with relaxed good humor. (No one bemoaned the absence of acceptance speeches, either—the whole ceremony wrapped up in under an hour.) Responding to the misspelled name of one nominee on his cue card, David Duchovny riffed: "Mindy Martin. Isn't that Mindy Marin? Mindy Marin almost didn't cast me in the second X-Files movie!" And poor Anthony Mackie ended up with almost exclusively hard-to-pronounce nominees' names, which he valiantly stumbled through—triumphantly announcing, "Jeff Greenberg!" when he finally came to a straightforward name. John Slattery, when his turn came around, said he had one great casting story that was too long to tell, but that it involved "hair dye, Sylvester Stallone, [casting director] Joy Todd, and oral sex. And I did not get the job."