Contacts
When school was almost ending, I began keeping a couple notebooks. One had the name and addresses of agents, the other was name and addresses of casting people. I started writing letters introducing myself to appropriate names that I came in contact with, either in conversation or in reading the trade papers. I kept asking my network, my friends, my business associates, for names and for references. Then I worked those names and references. Soon I was beginning to get more auditions in New York. You had to go there in order be seen for any regional theater work. I was commuting there off and on on during my last year of grad school, and for the following year when I was trying to stay in residence in North Carolina. I started flying up more often to do auditions in the city, until it became clear that I had to move there to really work as an actor.
In New York I started a third notebook- Names of Theatres and Directors. I used those Biz contacts notebooks and kept filling them and enlarging them. I kept notes of who I had talked to, when I had written them a letter, when I had called them. That way I knew if I was bothering them too much. As I began to get work, I created little pieces of PR to send to anyone in my notebook. So life in New York was an awful lot of pushing myself, actually flagellating myself with that whip to do “the business”. Always trying to figure out something interesting to write to casting people. Keeping at it all the time. Meeting people. Networking. 90% of your work will be the business, until one of the irons you put in the fire lights. Then you can act, for a little while.
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Casting Directors/ Agents/ Classes
I’ve had friends who worked in casting directors offices. I remember one friend who was told to take all the (many) pictures that came in that month, go through them and then pick out three or four that she thought were interesting, and throw out the rest. Then those few that she found interesting for whatever reason, (probably she thought they were cute), would then be called for an audition. These little tidbits of information were invaluable when you’re young. They give you an insight into how the industry works.
The scariest part of getting casting people to meet with you was to make the phone call. You had to get past their secretaries and some of them could be really nasty. I remember a “Law and Order” casting director I wanted to meet. But her guard dogs were always so awful that I got this impression that she must be some kind of a beast. When I finally met her she was just as kind as one could be.
I suppose out of 100 or so letters that I would send, you might get two or three responses. And in the early years we were sending an 8 x 10 headshot of yourself as well. That became very costly. I stopped sending those, and started sending small postcard ones (cheaper) with smaller handwritten letters hoping that it would get through their guard dogs onto their actual desks. It’s a job. I’d spend a 40 hour week going through the trades, trying to get my hands on any useful casting information, writing letters, making calls. It was a full-time unpaid job. And of course when you did get a job it barely paid for anything. Eventually I learned about the Breakdowns. The Breakdowns tell you who is casting what and when, so you can focus very specifically on roles you’re right for, and the people who are handling the particular show. When I was able to get my hands on the Breakdowns it was a huge breakthrough. Having those actually made me more focused, more productive and more successful at getting auditions from them. Less waste of everyones time. But..actors were not allowed to have them, so it was something you paid others for, and worried about losing them all the time. That probably that is still true, and even less easy to get ahold of them. You need an agent who gets them.
My first agent left for Los Angeles, so I had to find another agent. I remember going in to interview at one agency. I was excited to get this new opportunity, as they were getting good clientele at the time. I met with one of the three main owners, a woman. I had on a thin white shirt, a black tight skirt and a short beaded jeweled white vest over the shirt. You could definitely tell what my physique was like. Nothing was flowing, it was all tight on me. The woman was very interested in me. She said I was a combination of Candace Bergen and Kathleen Turner. She thought the other partners would be interested, but she told me to wear something even more revealing next time. How much more did she mean? Needless to say, I went with a different agency. One that asked me to Act for them, not just to wear skimpy clothes. This was New York after all, and the theater world, not Los Angeles and movies.
I was doing a show at the time luckily, and a friend’s agent came to see me. Afterwards, she said wanted to signed me, so it was a quick turnaround. Beginning to work with her I would send her notes of upcoming shows I knew I would be right for, or that I’d seen in the Breakdowns, so she could she submit me for them. Her sub-agent told me in confidence she didn’t like it when I did that. She felt that I wasn’t trusting her to get me the work. But the point was, I knew what I was right for. She’d only seen me act one time. I thought I was helping her.
In a class for Voice-over technique the teacher instructed us never to talk to anyone in an audition room, ever. I’m sure she said this in every class she taught. Never talk to anyone, because they were there to screw you up. If they were talking to you it was because they were trying to mess with you. This was such a piece of BS. I have had all sorts of people talk to me in auditions. Most often it’s people that you have an acquaintance with. Actors don’t see each other very often. We have a large family of fellow actors that we know, but we rarely see each other unless we run into them in these audition rooms. The other people that might talk to you in an audition room are people that are a little nervous and want to calm down, or people that are interested in getting to know you. I certainly have had my share of men begin to talk to me and then ask me out before we left. But that is a different kind of screwing with you than she meant.
So this -day after day- busy work, whipping yourself to get enough work done, is necessary. Unless you’re really lucky. Work might also come from running into another actor in audition rooms, or on the street, or in coffee shops. They’d say they just had an audition for such and such… then you feel bad wondering why why didn’t you get called, too. So you’d inquire about it. It was hard to have friends for instance who did roles in the range you were also right for. We could be envious, jealous of each other. You had to try to get past that. Most of your career is spent doing the business, not acting. You’re not making any money. If you’re lucky, you get a few jobs and then you’d qualify for six months of unemployment. That barely pays bills but it lets you just get by. It was a lot of anxiety, pacing around your room, fear about making phone calls. Finding ways to distract yourself from the nerves, the fear of the poverty. But then one day one of those irons you’ve put in the fire, lights. For me, I would say one out of every 20 some theatre auditions, would light. It was tougher in the commercial world. I don’t actually know but it felt like one in 50 for a lucrative big job. You’re excited just to get in the audition room. You’re so hopeful that maybe you could pay your doctor bill or go to the dentist. If you knew your unemployment was going to run out soon, you’d pray that the next audition was going to get you that lifesaving job. Most of the time you never heard anything back. Not even a “Thanks, but no thanks”. Just dead air. But then one day the call would come, “Hello, are you interested in playing….?” Yes. Please!
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PR
Another aspect of the job is the PR you send out. This changes dramatically every few years. When I was younger and there were no computers, no Facebook, or Instagram, everything was done on paper. Most actors did not have access to fax machines unless they had office jobs as well. I took pictures from the shows I had just been in, and put the best ones into some kind of little cogent attractive page with some reviews on an 8 x 11 piece of paper. Then I would get that copied, maybe a 100 to begin with. The cheapest was black and white. Then I would send out these pieces of paper along with a letter to 100 or so theaters/directors around the country, and some casting people. As I got a little older I started making more interesting pieces rather than just on a flat 8 x 11 paper. I would even go to a graphic artist to help me mark up something more creative. I had to get a PMT of the picture (pixelated) so it could print more easily, more clearly. Sometimes I would make them into little booklets to send out. Eventually color copying was almost the same price as black-and-white so everything went to color. The head of the Old Globe Theater school during that time told me that he saved all of my PR, and used them as an example in his acting business class of what an actor should do. (A rare thing- a school with a Biz class for actors! I started teaching one as soon as I could, because it is so needed!) I’ve had other people tell me that they’ve used my PR as well in class. It gave directors a context to understand who I was rather than just sending a headshot and a letter. I rarely sent out 8×10 pictures and letters after that. Maybe a postcard size picture would be inserted into a 3 x 5 envelope with a piece of PR. If it looked more like a personal note, rather than a biz letter, it might make it past the guardians and into the hands-off actual person I had intended it for. I also remember once going around to my agents and casting director offices and handing them all loaves of homemade bread, and saying thank you for helping put dough in my pocket. Those days casting directors doors always said “Please do not enter”, or “leave your picture in the basket” placed on the floor outside the door. If you’re a maverick, you have to risk walking in the door. But if you do, and you’re a burden to them, they’ll always remember you that way. If you choose to walk in the door you better be ready to get a smile on all their faces.
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Arena stage Audition/ Monologues
When I was in school they told me always have a pair of contrasting monologues or a couple more ready to go at any time. But somehow I knew I might need a lot more of them. So in grad school I started putting together a lot. At least a dozen I could easily rattle off. 3-4 that were classical dramatic, 3-4 classical comedies, 3-4 contemporary dramatic, and 3-4 contemporary comedies. This is what I taught students to do through my teaching career. Then I would follow up with this short story: Soon after graduating, I went to Washington DC to audition for the Arena Stage’s Young People’s Company that they were trying to start. A young director named Jim Nicola, who later went to New York and became a director in one of the major theaters there, clearly had an interest in me as an actor. I did my two contrasting monologues, then he asked if I had anything else? I did a couple more. Then he asked if I had anything else? I did another. And he asked again, and on and on this went until I had gone through a dozen. I did 12 varied pieces for him that day. It is a good thing I was prepared. He got a good idea of my versatility. So, learn this lesson. Be Prepared. And no, sadly, I did not get the job. I was hopeful. I did my best. But sometimes in your life fate has another idea for you. A year later I was in a Broadway show.
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Auditions
Let’s chat about auditions a bit. I think it’s true for most actors that after a while in the biz you begin to see an audition as less about people judging you and more about an opportunity to actually act, even if only for a few minutes. It calms the nerves. Which isn’t to say that not getting the role doesn’t hurt afterwards. But that hurt often is less about feeling you weren’t good enough, but understanding you were good enough to have even gotten in the room. The hurt is really more about knowing that the job you lost is money you really needed because you’ve got a pay Dentist fee, or you needed that job because you’ve got to get a few more working weeks to be able to get your health care, or to open an unemployment claim. The hard part to figure out about auditions is how to do something that’s really going to catch their eye. Something that nobody else that day has done. Of course, you have no opportunity to know what anybody else was doing that day. In professional world you never see another audition, like you might in non-pro cattle calls. The “interesting” thing you chose to do can’t be too far out there, because then they’ll just dismiss you. It has to be within the context of the play or the character. Having been a reader in many auditions, I’ve seen firsthand many times that a director will have something very particular in mind. He may want a chocolate sundae, but he wants pistachios nuts on it and he wants a strawberry not a cherry on top. And when somebody comes in with those particular qualities, you can just feel it in the room. This person is definitely in the running for the role. I remember as a reader for Mark Lamos once, seeing an actress come in for the role of Thea- for “Hedda Gabler”, who he just particularly loved in the role, but he felt she didn’t fit with the other people that he had already basically chosen. So, he changed his mind about how to do the play and cast many of the others to fit around her. I also learned as a reader that 80% of the actors auditioning can probably do the role they’re coming in to read for. It really is subjective, it’s whatever that director has in their mind. They are in a candy store filled with jellybeans of every color, all tasty or in our case- talented, but they want a specific coconut licorice one. I learned that analogy from a director of a theater in Virginia who said to me, when I asked him why he rarely cast women more than once in his shows, that he wanted to change the candy each time. Why would he want to try that candy again, when there’s so many more to try?… Hmmm. Yes, another #metoo guy.
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Asking others “How Did I do?”
I want to warn Actors about listening to other peoples advice about their work. It’s not a good thing to always ask your agent “how did I do?” You know, kind of, how you did. If you start hearing others’ opinions about you over and over, it begins to feel like “the truth” in your mind. None of what they say is actually truth. It’s all opinion. Here’s an example. I was auditioning for Beatrice and a production of “Much Ado About Nothing”. I knew the director, I worked alongside him at a Shakespeare festival. He hadn’t directed me but we acted in shows together there. I was in my fourth or fifth call back, and I was excited because I really wanted to work with the actor who was to play Benedict, and with this director. Then I didn’t get the part. I was shocked. I asked my agent what happened? The agent called the casting director, and the casting director told my agent that I didn’t handle the Shakespeare very well. When my agent told me this I was very surprised, and upset! Why would I be in so many call backs if I could not handle the language. So I bravely called my director friend and asked him what happened. He told me it had nothing to do with handling Shakespeare, I wouldn’t have been in a fifth callback if I couldn’t handle the Shakespeare. He said that I lost the role because artistic director’s wife had decided to do the role instead. The wife had been trying to decide between a couple roles and she chose Beatrice. So now this casting director had put these words, her “opinions”, into my agents ears causing my agent to doubt my abilities. They weren’t the “truth”. They may have been her opinion, or they may have been something she just made up, who knows. I called my agent to clear up the story. I didn’t want her thinking I wasn’t good enough to handle Shakespeare and maybe miss out on playing one of his roles in the future.
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Directors
Directors really should be there to facilitate an actors work. Some directors just give you too many notes. You hit a place where all you are doing is trying to achieve their notes. You’re no longer on the train ride of the play. A few directors give a lot of notes but don’t care if you get all of them. They are better than those that keep harping on you. You cannot do good work if you’re hearing a directors voice in every sentence and every scene you perform.
In NY, I learned fairly quickly that it’s the directors you want to be in touch with. Agents help, but if casting people do not know you, odds are you won’t get in the room. The directors are the ones who can get you in the door of the casting office. The directors are the ones who are going to choose you ultimately to play the part. The director is the one you want to impress. And if you impress them and they hire you, the casting director will remember you much more than just seeing your picture and resume.
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