Struggling Actors: 3 Techniques to Start Booking Roles

As an actor, you agree that auditioning (either in person or via self-tape) and booking roles is both the most exhilarating yet hardest part of the job.

    As an undergraduate student at Northwestern University studying Musical Theatre and Film, along with working in the entertainment industry for six years, I have found two articles that are both insightful and motivational for your next audition. 

         In the article entitled “1 Distraction You Need to Avoid When Auditioning” (include a link to the article) published in Backstage by Natalie Roy, mentor and audition coach Roy describes the idea of avoiding self-judgement and trying to predict what the casting directors are thinking about you in favor or choosing to engage fully with the material and “play” in the room. One must avoid criticizing an audition in order to live fully in the moment and become the character in question. 

Source: La La Land “Audition Trailer” from We Got This Covered
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PyZBPEobFI

    This jovial perspective from Roy creates the question: but how can you be sure that you prepare and “play” the material in the way the writers intended? After all, having a joyous and exuberant mindset is only as valued as answering the needs of those sitting behind the table. 

    This is when an article entitled “The 1 Thing You Should Know Before Auditioning for TV” (include a link to the article) published in Backstage by Michelle Danner, becomes extremely helpful. Danner, a director and audition coach, claims that: “[y]ou can be the best actor in the world and bring truth to the scene you’re performing in an audition, but if you don’t understand the material you’re playing and if you don’t enter the specific world the story is set in, you’ll be at a loss and do yourself a disservice.”

     Danner goes into detail about how larger categories, such as “Medical Dramas” can be broken down into specific themes: such as “Grey’s Anatomy” dealing with both rare cases and light-hearted romantic relationships, while “ER” deals with straight, heightened drama without the same joking nature. Understanding these differences are crucial, in order to fit in the overarching arc and theme of the show and to ultimately book the role. 

   














 

Source: Grey’s Anatomy… from ABC News
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/video/greys-anatomy-cast-reflect-shows-iconic-love-stories-61398257  


 Based on my review of these two articles and my experience as an actor, casting director, and producer, I have developed three recommendations when thinking about booking roles directly from your audition. They are:

1.     Focus on You – it’s impossible to know what the casting directors are thinking, so it’s better to give it your all and live in the moment.
2.     Style and Tone – know and understand the material given to you for the audition, so that you can deliver it appropriately in the vein of current episodes.
3.     Come to Play – know your material well enough that you can adapt to notes and/or scene partners, don’t memorize it to the point of being stuck in your ways.
 
        This combination of being both free in the moment and expressing yourself while understanding the material’s overarching themes can be applied in both an in-person audition or via self-tape. And as the entertainment industry becomes more digital and more actors are becoming bi-costal and local hires across the country, it becomes even more important to produce a high-quality self-tape to match your level of acting ability. 

        Several materials have the ability to transform your audition. They are:

§  A portable blue Backdrop:

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§  A tripod with a Blutetooth remote to hold your phone while filming: 

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§  Lighting to mimic on-set angles:

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·       or, if you want to combine a phone tripod and lighting: 

·       
 

    So the next time you receive an audition notice, remember to bring your full self to the scene and focus on your work, not the thoughts of those watching you. Research the scene and show in order to understand the material, tone, and themes. And bring a child-like openness and energy to the room that is open to adjustments and willing to play. And if someone asks for a self-tape, know that the quality (and the acting) will impress every viewer. 

About the Author: Alison is a 22-year-old theatre and film actress taking the industry by storm in Chicago, New York, and LA. Known for her witty humor and vivid facial expressions, she is about to begin her senior year at Northwestern University, where she is pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre, a Musical Theatre Certificate, Marketing Certificate, and Minor in Film and Media. When she is not in the classroom, she is auditioning for agents in several cities, working downtown Chicago, and keeping up a blog and YouTube channel. 

 My interview with Authority Magazine is out now! 

Follow me on Twitter: @alisonvandam 

Follow me on Instagram: @thatgirlalisonn

3 Audition Recommendations to Help You Become the Next Flo

A working actor can prosper when booking a commercial, but the audition room can be very puzzling. As a Northwestern student specializing in Theatre and Integrated Marketing Communications, I have found two articles that will benefit you in your next commercial audition. 

How to Nail Your Next Commercial Audition by Jamie Irvine, a writer for Backstage.com, demystifies the audition room and provides insight into what casting directors are thinking. In Irvine's experience, she has found that being specific about clothing and knowing your colors will help bring your personality and archetype to life, but you have to be able to play the part you dressed for. Irvine touches on the importance of moments immediately before and after the audition; the waiting room is a great tool to come alive and express yourself by being aware of your surroundings. Once the audition is over, there's no reason to overthink what you just did because even your mistake might've made a strong impression. 

Source: Progressive Corporation

My Worst Moment: When Paul Scheer Realized Trying to Stand on Your Head Won't Get You the Part, by Nina Metz from the Chicago Tribune, looks at renown actor Paul Scheer's experience in an audition for a Twix commercial. Scheer was in his early 20s and felt like commercial auditions were high stakes because he might "hit the jackpot." Scheer felt pressure to stand out and make a dent, so he took inspiration from Robin Williams' audition for 'Happy Days' where he was on his head the whole audition. Scheer relied so heavily on trying to be memorable and do his two-line audition upside-down on a chair that he bombed the whole thing. 

Based on these two articles and my experience at Northwestern University and as a working actor, I have developed a few key tips to use when preparing for your next commercial audition. 

• Embrace Your Mistake. Making a mistake can be a good thing that shows the casting director something organic and natural, but don’t actively try to make a mistake.

• Use Your Archetype. Be aware of the types you are consistently called in for and make sure you can play those. Commercials rely on archetypes.

• Be Memorable, Naturally. It’s important to make strong choices in an audition to standout, but don’t force an unnecessary choice in a commercial audition where you might only have five seconds of screen time.

As actors, we must not be scared by the audition room but instead discover how to own the space. 

Julian Larach is a senior at Northwestern University studying theatre and integrated marketing communications. You can get in touch with Julian via LinkedIn or Twitter. 

Theatre Managers: 3 Ways to Improve Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Your Workplace

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is a buzzword surrounded by countless discourse in the theatre community. Frankly, theatres today are still dominated by straight, white men, and have very little space for intersectional identities. We have been talking about diversifying our casts, crews, and production team members since … well, forever, but we evidently have a lot more work to do. It is a huge task, and on an individual level, it seems too lofty and big an issue to tackle personally. Where to start?

As a student specializing in communications and theatre management, I have compiled two articles here that summarize the shortcomings in American theatre community’s diversity, as well as offer tips:  

“The Empty Space: A Look at How Theaters Have FilledGaps in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” at the NonProfit Quarterly by Al Heartley and Jocelyn Prince, is a statistics-packed spotlight on American non-profit theatres’ structural racism and sexism. The article starts with highlighting that in our increasingly multicultural society, non-profit theatre continues to cater to white, cisgender, heterosexual people. While theatre is often seen as a “shining liberal beacon”, audiences at theatres are aging and very few young people attend. It also showcases industry leaders who do it right: Oregon Shakespeare Festival with its holistic approach and all-staff training; TCG with its SPARK leadership program and continued effort in spearheading EDI in theatre; Dallas Theatre Center with its diverse programming and specific goals, among other groups. Heartley and Prince urge all theatre makers to take actions now and not be afraid to make big changes, as “the very power and impact of theater in American society are at stake.”

The inaugural class of TCG’s SPARK leadership program that examines leadership, vision, diversity, inclusion, and equity in theatre. Image source: HowlRound

 

“You want a diverse theatre? Prove it.” from HowlRound. This is an article advising theatre groups on how to improve their organization’s EDI, written by KarenaFiorenza Ingersoll and Deena Selenow. Taking a theatre hiring manager’s perspective, they write about different companies’ approaches to better practice in EDI as well as actionable items in the areas of recruitment, retainment, and casting. They suggest theatre groups to reach beyond their comfort zones when recruiting, learn from cultural differences across different communities, recruit leaders and managers with diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, they emphasize the importance of color-conscious, rather than color-blind, recruitment and casting practices.

Based on these two articles, here are three action items that we, as individuals, can practice: 

• Think Specific – Be specific about what kind of diversity the theatre is tackling, blanket terms give impressions of hypocrisy and laziness. 
• Welcome corrections – Everyone has room for growth and learning, don’t feel embarrassed or offended if a person corrects your wording or action; they are also imperfect.
• Keep pushing – Identities are not just labels, and diversity is not just boxes ticked off on a form; we must continue to push ourselves and strive to truly create a community that welcomes all people regardless of their race, ethnicity, ability, gender, sexuality, class, and citizenship.

It is my hope that these articles and suggestions will encourage more people to prioritize diversity in their team building, so that theatre can be a community for all people.  

Faye Oyang is a graduating senior at Northwestern University in the School of Communication. She has been actively involved in theatre on campus as a stage manager and a producer, and has served leadership roles in student theatre companies that focus on sociopolitical issues and activism.

She can be reached at oyangfaye@gmail.com as well as her LinkedIn.

When she isn’t rambling about run sheets and activist theatre, Faye also specializes in Communications Studies and Japanese. 

Theatre Makers: 3 Tips on Revitalizing Theatre for the Millennial Generation

As theatre makers we are always looking to expand our audiences and get young people out to see shows. But when I ask my “non-theatre” friends to explore the vibrant Chicago theatre scene with me, they usually pass on the offer. Most of these friends would rather pay $40 to see a concert, or stay home and watch Netflix alone, than go see a play on a Friday night. As an undergraduate student studying Theatre and Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, I am interested in how to use consumer insights to rebrand theatre as a viable entertainment option for Millennial audiences. My research has led me to two articles that highlight important concepts on the issue.

The Society Page's, "Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality" by Nathan Jurgenson argues that an “augmented reality” more accurately describes our experience of the world in the digital age. People “enmesh their physical and digital selves to the point where the distinction is becoming increasingly irrelevant.” Rather than separating the digital world from the physical world as “virtual” versus “real,” people experience the “offline” world as a result of the logic and content that pervades their “online” world. This is especially true for Millennials who have grown up with the Internet, which provides theatre makers with the interesting challenge of accounting for this augmented sense of reality when creating and marketing their work to this group.

The Wooster Group's production of To You, the Birdie!

The Theatre Communications Group published an article earlier this year entitled, Making Eye Contact with Millennials: the Ephemeral and the Visceral by Justin Maxwell. It notes that theatre makers forget to highlight “the unique thing our artistic genre is capable of.” It suggests that Millennials would see theatre if they knew the unique experience it offered them: human connection. Rather than trying to compete with film, television, and other high-quality content often available to Millennials for free from the comfort of their bed, we shouldn’t waste our time focusing on the story “as our primary artistic element,” but rather the live, visceral, ephemeral experience.
After reading these two articles and from my studies in the Northwestern Medill IMC program, here are three action items that will help you during both the creative and marketing process to engage Millennials on their terms:

• Integrate Digital - Integrate digital storytelling into the theatre you make. Millennials live fully in both the physical and virtual world, and your work should account for their augmented sense of reality.

• Extend the relationship - Don’t just blast social media with advertisements. Create unique content for your audience to engage with you across media platforms before and after the event.

• Think beyond - Think beyond the story as our primary artistic element, and rather focus on what makes theatre unique: the live performance event.

As subscriber based audiences get older, it is imperative that theatre makers consider Millennial sensibilities when creating their work and marketing it out. It’s time we show young people that theatre can be thrilling!

Isabella Mehiel | Twitter: @iMehiel

I am a senior at Northwestern University majoring in Theatre and pursuing the Integrated Marketing Communications Certificate through the Northwestern Medill School of Journalism. I am the co-founder and Artistic Director of Voyeur Theatre Collective, a group of young multimedia artists who combine aspects of rave culture, cinema, and performance art to create immersive performance events for Millennials. I will be graduating in June 2015, at which point I will continue working as an actor, director, and theatre maker.

Producers & Theatre Makers: 3 Tips to Make Your Passion A Career

As a theatre producer, you know there is new theatre being made every day but only a small percentage of theatre has a lifespan longer than a few months, resulting in fleeting careers. Having worked in theaters in Chicago and studied theatre at Northwestern University, I have been introduced to every model of company and seen the strengths and weaknesses of them all. I found these two articles that helped me get a better sense of what is happening in the theatre industry and how the path to success is changing.

Rebecca Novick's bluntly honest piece "Please Don't Start a Theater Company!" in the journal for the Grantmakers in the Arts talks about the current trend of theatre-makers starting their own theatre companies in order to produce the work they want to see. Most importantly she urges our generation to stop doing this. She examines the pitfalls of this career path and proposes alternate solutions for artists to create the work they love and actually maintain a career in the arts. These include the increasing amount of apprenticeships in major theaters and repertory programs for new work.

The Guardian, a newspaper based in the United Kingdom, posted this article by Lyn Gardner about a new initiative that the city of London is doing in order to create a stage for the best theatre in the country. They are trying to unite productions from across the region in a unified season of work. The great theaters in London are participating and shows a support for this new work and other less established companies. This proposes an innovative solution to some of the problems small companies face and a new structure that can provide new art as well as new, sustainable jobs.

As a graduating senior and former intern at multiple regional theaters, my review of these two articles leads to three action items you should consider when starting a career as a theatre maker.

1. Find a Passion Community. Find your people, your niche community, your home. Locate the city you feel at home in and what theatre excites you the most. Put yourself near the work you love and find others that are driven by that same passion.
   
2. Establish Yourself. Get your hands dirty and do some work. Don't worry if it isn't exactly the job you want to be doing, every one has to start somewhere. Find what you can and make yourself indispensable.
   
3. Stay Connected. Meet people. Theatre is about who you know, so don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Once you meet the artists you want to work with, cultivate those relationships and keep them going. Go to coffee, lunch, a show, anything to keep that communication line open.

There is no need to start your own company to make the work you want to see. Chances are there is a company doing exactly that in a city near you. Get involved. Don’t be afraid to work your way up to the job you want instead of gunning for it right away; experience is the best education for theatre. Meet the people working at that company and begin networking. Before you know it, your dream job will land in your lap.

Brannon Bowers
I am a Northwestern senior majoring in Theatre and in the Integrated Marketing Communications program. I previously ran the nation's largest student theatre company for two years and have worked at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and Redmoon Theater. I will be working at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ, next year as their Producing/Casting Intern.

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter.