auditions – Page 27 – Answers for Actors

(Part 2) Getting Stage Work Before Other Artists

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If you missed Part One of Getting Stage Work Before Other Artists then the next installment below, Part 2 , will make no sense to you. Go to the link below for Part One.

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Getting $tage Work Before Other Artists (Part 1)

Getting $tage Work Before Other Artists (Part 2) – Read on below…

Welcome back.

Last we left off we were in the middle of Project: Target Regions (If you need a refresher go back to Post 1 and return… I’ll wait.)

Project Target Regions Step 4

Timing is everything to winning work.

With regional and summer stock theaters you must always think beyond the present and to the future in terms of seeking work. Meaning; plan your visits to be when the theaters are planning their next season. If you’re wondering when that is for each individual target theater you could call and ask the assistant to the producing artistic director. But generally a regional stage begins planning the next season in the middle or near the end of their present season. That’s when you have to be like a laser guided missile and hit your targets.

Now, you may have noticed I chose a month in my cover letter example (Part One of this post) to Mr. Rose: July. I picked that purposely because I know that the Barter annually begins formulating their next season (which begins the following January) in July.

You can choose any general time period that your little wordsmith heart and digital calendar desires, as long as the theater is in operation during that proposed time slot. Emphasis on “proposed”. You don’t have to actually have a trip planned for the period you forecast.

‘Huh?’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Do you mean lie about being in the area?’, you may be bantering about in your brain. No! You’re not truly fibbing in font. You’re planning. (Sometimes too much honesty can hurt your career, remember that).

After you get your first bite for a meeting/audition with a regional producing entity (Ya-hoo!), then you begin the actual planning for your journey to jobs. And that’s when you begin pushing harder to get more appointments at other theaters in the same region.

You can choose a day, week, or month of your liking but you’d be better off timing your “planned trip” to match a time when the people you need to put your face in front of are most accessible.

As for day of the week, Monday is always best as that’s the traditional dark day of theater. At union theaters there are usually no rehearsals, the administrative and tech staff are beginning the week anew without pressure (unless it’s a tech week of which you should always avoid for visiting a theater). Non-union theater schedules? Anything goes. There are no rules for them.

Project Target Regions Step 5

O.K. you got one appointment. Now get more within the region. Economize and make the most of your venture. Push for appointments at other theaters within the region. Let others know that a neighbor of theirs has taken an interest in you. Ever notice how someone with a partner is sometimes more attractive and desirable than those who are single? Same rules of want apply to work. Re-target. Again. With an e-mail and/or post-card.

Recommended E-mail Format for Follow-up:

Project Target Region Step 6

Once you have appointments at your theater(s) budget your trip as cheaply as is possible. If you have friends and family within a comfortable driving distance of your target(s); stay with them. The next best and cheapest accommodations of course are available by booking low-rate motel/hotels at discount hotel bookings sites online. Remember that you’re not taking the trip for the luxury of where you sleep but for gaining future opportunities to afford and enjoy four diamond accommodations.

If you don’t have relatives, friends, or friendly ex’s in the area(s) to be visited, or can’t afford a motel/hotel then weather permitting there is always camping (if you have a tent) or sleeping in your car. “Ew”, you may be thinking. But while the latter may seem really disgusting because you would awake with horrible morning breath (or worse yet, back-seat hair), you can always shower the skin, clean your enamels and style your do at truck stops, a local Y or health club (some have better facilities than four-star hotels). While sleeping in a tent or car is not the most glamorous of accommodations, they are the cheapest other than on couches of friends and relatives. And these two options (tent or car) can be done without long-lasting, emotional, debilitating affects. I’ve survived both without problem although my right-eye does twitch uncontrollably on occasion when passing by a Flying-J or TravelCenters of America.

Borrow transportation if you can. If not, rent as low as is possible without having to hitch a horse to the front bumper. If you don’t have a driver’s license (as an adult you really should grow-up and have one) bus or train your way to the jobs.

Keep the trip simple as far as expenses are concerned. And remember: All expenses for finding work are tax-deductable. That includes; gas, mileage, rentals, accommodations and meals while away from your home base. Keep your receipts!

Project Target Regions Step 7

Once you’re on the road that doesn’t mean you stop targeting theaters in the region you’re visiting. With mobile devices keeping us in constant contact almost anywhere at anytime, you can e-mail or call prospective employers. Simply be direct and say/write/text, “I’m in your neck of the woods this week visiting [insert theater/producer name]. I would love just fifteen minutes of your schedule and introduce myself to you. Thanks!”

There’s no shame in seeking employment. So if you’re reticent about this “aggressive” marketing of your product that is you either get over yourself or get into a new, more secure, career where you are not a professional job seeker. (Armed forces anyone?)

Target Regions via Vacations:

A student of mine and I were in a discussion about how he should be targeting theaters in the region of his residence, Greater Philadelphia a.k.a. The Delaware Valley. I was giving him some homework to do for the next class when he casually mentioned that he was taking his son to Pittsburgh to scope out colleges. Before he finished the sentence I stopped him.

“Did you contact any of the theaters in Pittsburgh to let them know you’ll be in the area?”

He knew I had caught him at missing an opportunity. The forty-year plus old man sheepishly looked down at the floor like an adolescent caught breaking curfew and mumbled that he didn’t but should have. Duh! Yes. The trip had already been planned. Hotel and travel arraignments made. If he had contacted the thriving theater market in and around the Steel City he could have written his family’s school-scoping-excursion off as a business expense! He also would have been creating new contacts that would have possibly led to a job that would help pay for his son’s costly secondary education! This guy lost an opportunity. Life 1. Student 0.

If you’re planning a vacation, a weekend road trip or any journey to areas where there are live theaters (or theme park entertainment if you’re so inclined to toiling in that trade) within a two hour driving distance from your destination don’t forget to pack some appointments into your schedule. Follow the previous Target Regions steps for getting yourself in front of people who can provide you with potential paychecks. One of the perks to taking meetings (or auditioning) while on a personal pleasure peregrination is that you can leverage that expense of luxury into a business deduction. I’m often amazed when I talk to theatrical friends and students who tell me they went to the Gold Coast of Florida or to the Berkshires (both cornucopias of regional theater) for a recent vacation and upon my asking, “Did you meet with any theaters while there?” and they look at me as if I just said something immoral about their mother. Then they realize the opportunities lost and ask me, “Should I have made contact with the theaters in the area?” What do you think? Life 2. Friends & Students 0.

And don’t overlook visiting college theater programs. Academia does occasionally hire guest artists, directors, choreographers and designers. The educational institutions also bring in professionals to teach or lecture. You might be able to pick-up a future guest lecture gig and enrich the knowledge of aspiring theater professionals (you were once one yourself, time to give back a little of what you’ve learned).

[End of Part 2. Next post includes what to take on your travels PLUS interview technique. If you’re not a subscriber to the the always free Answers for Actors I can guarantee that you’ll you’ll miss this important conclusion to this series and future posts. Several methods of getting the feed directly to you, at your convenience, are in the above, right column —–>. There’s one option below as well.]

My Best,
Paul

Paul Russell’s career as a casting director, director, acting teacher and former actor has spanned nearly thirty years. He has worked on projects for major film studios, television networks, and Broadway. Paul has taught the business of acting and audition technique at NYU and has spoken at universities including Yale, Temple and the University of the Arts. He writes a column for Back Stage and is the author of ACTING: Make It Your Business – How to Avoid Mistakes and Achieve Success as a Working Actor. For more information, please visit www.PaulRussell.net.

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Getting Stage Work Before Other Artists (Part 1)

There’s lots of work for theater artists. But are you correctly, with passion, going after the oodles of paychecks being offered? And how can you excel at being the first among your competition to getting offers? And where to go?

Actors, Directors, Designers & Stage Technicians – Journeys to Getting More Stage Work

There’s lots of work for theater artists. But are you correctly, with passion, going after the oodles of paychecks being offered? And how can you can excel at being the first among your competition to getting offers? And where to go? Answer: Out of town– and there’s a way to get that work before announced auditions and/or interviews are held.

Most theater artists miss the obvious route to finding the open expressway for paying jobs out in the regions. They wait in the tedium that is the unemployed congestion of New York, Chicago, London or LA, idling among hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of similarly stalled peers awaiting for the theaters, auditions and interviews to high-speed towards them. Wrong! That’s bullshit. And it’s a lazy, passive aggressive choice of finding (more like wishing for) work in regional theater and summer stock that will place the artist among thousands of others in line for the precious few jobs available at each theater. For the theater artist to jump ahead of all others they have to go to where the expressway ends. At the theaters.

Often when I career coach my private students I ask them, “Do you have a car or access to one?” They then look at me with a cocked-head, like a dog hearing a new sound, wondering what the hell does my asking about their having a Civic or Rent-a-Wreck access have to do with being an actor (other than the too many actors who relentlessly list “owns/drives car” as a special skill… Don’t even get me started on that Legit resume blunder). Whatever the answer “Yes”, “No”, or “Only when my wife-partner-trick of the week isn’t looking” I tell them to get out of the city and into the regions. That’s where the work exists. That’s where the employers of regional art are at their most relaxed, open and willing to consider new possibilities, i.e. YOU.

I know many actors, directors, designers, choreographers, stage managers and technicians who have gotten more work, by adhering to the advice that follows than by sitting in a large city waiting for the regional theaters to come to them.

Going to the theaters directly is a billboard to the hirer that announces about you, “I’m available and extremely interested in your company. I’m willing to invest time and money to make myself accessible to you on your home turf.” In short, your stock rises with them because you took the time, incentive and expense to recognize them instead of them recognizing you. Plus you’re not one among hundreds of artists seeking employ among your bank-account-starved peers. By going directly to where the work is (i.e. the theaters) you’ll get extended, quality face-to-face time with the theater’s artistic staff. Also it’s cheaper for a producer’s bottom-line budget if quality talent comes to them than for the producer to pay the expense of going to New York, Toronto or London for casting calls and interviews. Regional producers love, love, love when a good find lands on their door step. Wouldn’t you? Getting theatrical work in the regions can be this simple.

Now I’m not saying that you should hop into a car now and traverse the back roads of the country with your resume, cell phone, GPS and a smile. Hell no. Planning is needed first. And it doesn’t take much to begin the endeavor entitled: Project Target Regions.

Project Target Regions: Step 1

Pick a region. Any region depending upon your legal ability to work. Be it New England, Mid-Atlantic, the Northwest of America, the mountains of Manitoba or the Mid-lands of England. There’s work to be had everywhere. Then do one or both of two things. The first would be to get yourself a book which lists contacts for regional theaters (one great resource would be the Regional & Off-Broadway Theatre Guide published by ACL Books). Or go online to your favorite search engine and Google, Yahoo, Ask or Bing for regional and summer stock theaters in your region of choice.

An even better and swifter online resource of American regional theater would be LORT.org (the official web site for the League of Resident Theaters). On the member theater page are links to theater web sites. On each individual theater’s web site sleuth who is the in-house staff member for casting (not the NYC, LA or other large city casting representative). The e-mail addresses for the artistic directors and/or casting person in charge are often found directly on theater web sites.

(Important: Get the most recent contact information for who hires for your field of proficiency. Turn-over in regional theater is sometimes higher than at your local Burger King (except the smiles are often more sincere). )

Project Target Regions: Step 2

Collect clusters of theaters within 100 – 200 miles/kilometers of each other. Get up-to date contacts including e-mail and brick-and-mortar addresses for each gatekeeper of employment at your desired theater(s).

Project Target Regions: Step 3

Sit yourself down with a keyboard and begin typing your way to finding jobs. Worried that you’re not a wise wordsmith? Don’t. Just be direct. No coy or creative collection of consonants and vowels that challenge the verbosity, ancient publishing practice of paid-by-the-word, excruciating length of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. (As an example of ‘don’t’; don’t be like that prior rambling sentence.) No inane stories of how “Dedicated I am… Excited by your season…, blah-blah-blah bullshit.” Do you know how many of those meandering missives arts-hiring personnel receive daily? I and my colleagues could wallpaper several McMansions multiple times over in a month. One to two paragraphs. Three to four short sentences per paragraph. Direct. To the point. Business format. Clean lines (reminiscent of an Apple Store). All as seen in the following example; simplicity is the rule.

Proper Format for a Hard Copy Cover Letter

It’s that simple. But! You don’t just send off a missive and hope for a return. Expect the response to be similar to the cold rebuff given Rosie O’Donnell’s “Rosie”. (Don’t recall that one-night song-n-dance debacle? Point made. Game over.)

You have to follow-up. With a phone-call. Scary as that might be in the age of keyboard courage where we text and type without direct contact, it’s that one-on-one that pushes you past the delete button or trash bin.

O.K. now I can imagine a few reticent readers out there thinking, ‘But I’ve been told never to contact someone by phone.’ Oh puh-lease. Screw what those blathering boobs babble. Especially if they are unemployed which gives them plenty of time to give others bone-headed advice! Look at what being passive has done for their near-empty bank account and career. The other argument I can forecast from frightened readers of this font is, “They’ll hate me for calling them.” Really? You think that a single phone call will cause a stranger to despise you for seeking work? If so, then you had better get yourself into another career where marketing yourself daily one-on-one with the living is not an option. (When’s the last time you met an embalmer pushing their trade with a business card at a party, hmmm?).

[End Part 1 of This Post. Click Here For Part 2]

My Best,
Paul

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