Today I conducted the second part of an exhaustive course at TVI Studios on type as it applies to actors and the acting industry.   From experience, I know this to be a delicate topic with many actors.  We are naturally abhorrent at the idea of drawing boundaries around our work and recoil when somebody suggests that we limit ourselves in such a fashion.

We would like to believe that as trained artists we are capable of a broad range of roles.  And the truth of it is, we are.  Unfortunately, however, most industry professionals (producers, directors, casting directors) aren’t particularly interested in  our range.  These people tend to be very focused on the project they have at hand.  They want to find actors that fit each role perfectly.   Let me give you a personal example of how these two perspectives (ours and theirs) clash:

I used to audition for “The Sopranos” on a fairly regular basis.  The casting directors there liked me and liked my work.  Unfortunately, most of the roles that fit my age range were attitudinal young men with strong “street” looks and accents to match.  The scripts called for either sleeveless leather jackets and slicked-back hair, or for gaudy pinstriped suits and wide ties.  The characters usually threatened people.  Sometimes they subsequently killed them!

Am I capable of performing well in one of these parts?  Absolutely.  The problem I ran into was that every time I went in on one of the above-described roles I would sit in a waiting room full of actors that, quite frankly, were in real life almost exactly like the characters!  (minus, I hope, the homicidal urges).   Who do you think had the competitive edge in those situations?  I’ll give you a hint– “The Sopranos” is not on my resume!

“Type” is about identifying the most marketable version or versions of yourself, and then concentrating your marketing efforts towards those roles.  It’s about understanding that industry professionals are more interested in solving their immediate problems than in heaping praise upon you for your broad range.

I help my TVI members and our program students identify and aggressively market for their type every day.  If this is an issue you have yet to address in your own career please contact me so I can help you too.

Report from the trenches: (2 of 2)

I’m starting to hear rumors that the WGA strike may end soon.  However, residual effects could linger for who knows how long, especially with a SAG strike looming in the summer. NBC canceled all of their pilot orders a week after CBS and Warning Brothers / CW pretty much did the same. None of the networks have announced an alternative plan to fill their programming so advertisers are holding their breaths about new ****aigns—meaning the next sector of the industry to suffer could be commercials.  If the WGA strike lifts hopefully the networks will rush to restore their scripted content.  But if the networks are sour on writers after the revenue losses incurred by the strike, and wary of the SAG contract expiration, they might be reluctant to forge ahead with another pilot season.

Last week I described the “trickle-down” effect a strike like this can have on professional acting opportunities.  The short of it is, jobs become scarce.  So what can we do in a time like this?

First, you have to go easy on yourself. If you were auditioning and/or booking often prior to the strike, and now the well is dry despite your continued due diligence in finding and submitting on auditions and following up with your industry connections, you have to accept that this is just the way things are going to be for a while. Making radical changes to your processes or launching major initiatives to find representation or expand your contact list will have no positive short-term effects and might just drive you bonkers. By all means continue submitting—you never know what might happen!—but this is a good time to focus on some goals that are less contingent upon the fickle ups and downs of the industry.

First, and regular readers will find this no surprise, this is an excellent time to train. I just signed up for a six-month workshop with one of my private coaches. SIX MONTHS! I figure I might as well make myself better and more marketable if I have to sit on the sidelines. When things heat up again I’ll be that much better able to compete.

Second, you can turn your unwanted spare time into money. Get another part-time survival job and save some bullets. If you are frequently unable to train or pay for networking opportunities this is a perfect opportunity to save up some resources for later. If the strike goes on, and if SAG does indeed strike this summer, we could be looking at a slow industry for months.  You could amass a considerable war cest during that time!

Third, you can address major personal initiatives. One of the hardest things about being an actor is the constantly being “on-call.” Going out of the city for even a long weekend can easily mean a major missed opportunity, particularly during a busy time of year. So if you want to take that big vacation, or backpack across Europe, or visit all the baseball stadiums in the land, or audit a few classes at the local university, or buy a co-op in Forest Hills, well hey—go for it!

Finally, as I’ve recently written about, you can create your own opportunity. Get a play-reading group together. Write something and rent a cheap space for a limited run of performances. Shoot some sketch comedy pieces and post them on YouTube. The professional opportunities may have run dry but that creative well within you is still flowing, and you neglect it at your own peril.

You can do it, true believer. Turn those strike lemons into MARGARITAS!

Here is the most important thing I can say about monologues — prepare, prepare, prepare. I have made the mistake in the past, as many actors have, of choosing a new monologue and simply memorizing, working it on my own a couple of times and then using it as an audition piece. This was a mistake. We are actors. Actors, no matter how smart they may be, generally require some direction. Work the monologue in your class. If you’re not in class, work it with a coach. If you’re broke, work it with a good actor friend who you trust. Bottom line, work it with someone. The monologue may seem okay to you, but it is most likely not fully realized and things you think may be working may not be at all. The second most important thing? Throw it out if you don’t like it. Immediately. Don’t keep trying with the hopes that someday you’ll come to enjoy it. It is just you up there and if you don’t like your piece, I guarantee you that will come through. Find a piece you LOVE. Isn’t it great when you can say, “Gosh, I love doing that monologue!” Actors always say, “I hate monologues.” I believe that’s simply because they haven’t found a piece they love yet. This can take time and much research. Be patient. Keep going to plays, reading plays, talking to friends. You’ll find something, I promise. And when you do, I bet you’ll start getting the callback.

Today I received an email from a curious party asking how she can get in touch with an agent.  Since questions about representation come to me about a dozen times a day I think it’s high time I address the topic in some detail.

First, a disclaimer.  Many people believe that an agent is the single most important component to a successful acting career.  This belief is fueled by the popular media and reports heard through friends of friends of would-be actors.  The belief usually goes something like this:

“If I can just get myself an agent all of the difficult problems associated with navigating the business of acting, which I don’t entirely understand, will go away.  The agent will take care of everything.  He or she will make all the right people believe in me and take me seriously.  When I have a problem I will call my agent and he or she will solve it.  If I want to be in a certain movie or on a certain television show or in a particular play I will tell my agent and he or she will make it happen.  Until I have found my agent I will have no career and will be powerless to create one, so my top priority, my only priority, should be to find one.”

Part of the reason that this belief is so popular is that it takes all of the pressure off the actor.  Think about this closely because it’s very important.  If indeed some magical entity exists that can open any door for your career then, obviously, obtaining a relationship with this entity would indeed be extremely desirable.  What makes this belief a fallacy, however, is that NO SUCH PERSON EXISTS.  Agents are not all-powerful beings that can make or break careers.  Many successful actors do not have, or have ever had, or even desire to have, an agent.  Conversely, Many unsuccessful actors have been represented for years and years but have gone nowhere.

This is because it’s not the agent that’s important, IT’S THE ACTOR.

I’ll back up my claim.  Here is a very simple description of how a project gets cast:

The producer in charge of the project hires a CASTING DIRECTOR (CD).  They talk about the various roles that need to be cast and the qualities of each character.  The CD puts this information into a BREAKDOWN and releases it to all the agencies in the city.

AGENTS read through the breakdowns and compare the descriptions on it with the actors they represent.  If there are matches the agents compile a SUBMISSION and send it off to the CD.

The CD and his or her associates and assistants go through the many submissions.  They pull out the actors they feel might be good fits, call up the agents of those respective actors, and schedule audition appointments.  Only a certain percentage of the actors that are submitted receive an appointment.  Usually these are actors that the CD is already familiar with although exceptions will be made for actors that have extensive experience and appear to be right for one of the parts.

If an agent feels that a particularly well-suited client has been unfairly overlooked he or she will call the CD, sometimes multiple times, and try to get that client an audition appointment.  The agent’s success will depend on how many extra appointments are available and the strength of his or her relationship with the particular CD.

If you’ve been paying close attention you will see that the real decision-maker in this part of the casting process is not the agent but the casting director.

Actors that have developed excellent reputations with lots of casting directors audition frequently whether or not they have an agent.  Actors with few or no relationships with casting directors rarely get seen for anything no matter who or how powerful their agent is.  Because of this, agents are interested in representing actors that have established a track record on their own of booking jobs and already have good relationships with many casting directors.  This is for the simple reason that such actors are the most likely actors to book more work and make money.

Most agents leave some space on their client roster for “developmental clients.”  These are usually newcomers to the industry that the agent feels are particularly marketable because they possess a high level of talent and a certain look that often comes up in the breakdowns.  When an agent signs a developmental client the understanding is that the agent will work hard to get as many doors open as possible, AND the actor will will work hard on his or her own to do the same thing.  The goal is not to book work right away but instead to establish a long list of casting directors that think the actor is good.  The agent AND the actor are working together so that the actor can eventually reach a highly competitive position within the market.  Success depends on how hard BOTH parties are willing to work to arrive at their goal.

Unfortunately, a frightening number of talented young actors are lucky enough to find representation as development clients despite not being aware of the responsibility they have towards the ultimate success or failure of the relationship.  These actors are usually under the spell of the false belief I exposed in the disclaimer to this article.  As time goes by and nothing happens they get frustrated.

My bottom line is this: the best way to find representation is to demonstrate you don’t need representation.  Be as good as you can be, book work on your own, and establish glowing reputations with as many casting directors as you can.  If you can do this you will find that the agents come to you!

If this article doesn’t make sense to you then I would like to as politely as possible suggest you may stand to benefit from career coaching.  Please call me at TVI Actors Studio in New York and we can chat!

The kind of acting in which you are working on a regular basis is many things, but “something that is accomplished quickly” is in nearly every case not one of them. Here are two personal examples to illustrate:

1.) I once took a workshop with a major primetime television casting director. I performed a monologue and braced myself for the feedback. It was not good. In fact, it was awful. She wasn’t mean but she was honest– she could tell I was acting, wasn’t particularly interested in the point of view I was trying to express, and felt that while I had potential I was not yet nearly ready to successfully compete for the kind of parts that she casts. I was simultaneously grateful for her honesty and devastated by her assessment of the work.

More than three years and hundreds of class hours later I got an audition with this very same casting director through my agents. She was casting yet another primetime television series. I went in and did my work. She didn’t remember our previous meeting and I didn’t remind her of it. She loved my audition, gave me a wonderful compliment in the room, and also gave me a callback on the spot. Glad I didn’t give up after the first time she saw me.

2.) I once had an audition for a regional theatre. I felt it went very well but was disappointed when no callback resulted. About six months later the artistic director contacted my agents to inquire if I was available to do a reading of a new play. I was and I did. About a month after that the artistic director called again to ask if I wanted to come back for yet another reading. I did. A few months after that he brought me in to audition for a show he was directing– I booked it! And then during the run of that show, about a year after he first met me, he offered me a part in his next show. I guess there’s something to this persistence thing.

You already know that the path of a professional actor is a difficult one to tread. If you add to it the pressure of expecting immediate and profound results the path goes from difficult to impossible. Set realistic expectations for yourself and your career and then make their pursuit a daily habit. If you’re unsure of what is realistic or how to effectively pursue your goals– and because such knowledge is hardly common this is likely, especially if you’re just starting out, and nothing to be embarrassed about– please call me up at TVI Actors Studio.

We are here to help you!

This will be a short but sweet update.

I was about to pull the trigger on a class with a major casting director with whom I have long wanted to establish a connection. But then something wonderful happened– I booked my next job!

I have developed a general rule that basically states I want to have something happening for me at any given time. The worst thing I can do for my career is nothing whatsoever. If I’m not working I’m training. If I can’t afford to train right now I’m working extra shifts at additional jobs so I’ll be able to afford it later. If I’m tired of training then I try to expand the number of casting director or agent contacts I have. If I’ve become disillusioned with the industry and “playing the game” then I create my own opportunity– a short film, maybe.

What’s great about my little rule is I never feel anymore like my career is going nowhere. I quite literally always have something in the hopper. More and more I find myself having to push back something to accommodate a booking. I feel like I’m in demand! This is enormously helpful in terms of my personal attitude and outlook. Once upon a time when I was totally dependent on the “waiting to be picked for something” system each audition carried with it lots of pressure. After all, if I didn’t do well I knew it meant more time sitting on my couch in a depressed funk waiting for the phone to ring.

But now that I always have something happening that pressure is gone. Rather than go into an audition desperate for approval (and work) I go in confident with the knowledge that even if this job doesn’t pan out something else is waiting for me.

Something funny happened to me two weeks back. I got a call from my agents that CBS had requested to see me for a new sitcom. The reason I found this funny is that my last pilot season was a lonely one– all of my industry attention was from theatre and film, and none from television. It’s not an uncommon experience, especially for New York actors, but hey– I want to be on TV as much as the next guy!

So what was CBS doing casting a new television series at a point on the calendar about as far from pilot season as one can possibly get? The answer is the title of this post. Before I explain further let me first give you some background.

Big parts on television shows are known as “series regular” roles. For example, the six actors that comprised the friends on “Friends” were the series regular roles for that show. Everybody else was at best a “recurring” character, which means a big part that appears in more than one episode, but not all of the episodes. Tens of thousands of actors thirst after a series regular role for very obvious reasons.

When a new television show is born only a single episode is created. This is called the “pilot” episode. When the pilot is cast the series regular roles are filled. Everybody involved works as hard as they can on the pilot in the hopes that the finished product will please a network and get “picked up.” Most pilots never make it that far. The lucky pilots that do receive an “order” from a network, usually for either a half season (13 episodes) or a full season (26 episodes). At this point the show goes into full production, churning out episode after episode. As each new episode is completed it airs and then the network assesses how the series is doing in the ratings. If it’s doing poorly the network will usually cancel the rest of their order. If the series is doing well the network will try any number of things to make the series more effective such as, for example, moving it to a more desirable time slot.

All television series eventually get canceled. The only question is how long the series lasts before this happens. Most get canceled within nine months of being picked up.

When a network cancels an episode it is left with a gap in its broadcast schedule that it must fill. So the first definition of “mid-season replacement” is a show that gets a green light because another show bit the dust. When I went in to CBS two weeks ago it was to audition for a role in what the network hopes will be a mid-season replacement. Clearly some other show they had pinned their hopes on was going to be cancelled and now they were going to Plan B.

Sometimes when a network views a pilot it decides to tweak the show before picking it up. Often, and regrettably, this involves replacing some of the actors from the pilot with different actors. The new actors may be celebrities that the network hopes will draw in additional viewers, but not always.

Occassionally these tweaks get made only after a series has started to air. Generally when this happens the series is already in the jaws of cancellation and the network is merely delaying the inevitable. But whatever the reason, this is the second meaning of mid-season replacement!

“Type” is such a dirty word amongst actors. If you haven’t encountered it before, “type” refers to a usually narrow description of roles that an actor can play particularly well and is cast in often. You might be a loving grandmother type, or a young hunky leading man type, etc. Many actors become terrified that if they become strongly associated with a particular “type” they will suffer through a monotonous career of one cookie-cutter role after another. Alas, sometimes this does happen.

But type doesn’t have to be all bad. Some savvy actors can figure out the kinds of roles in which they are particularly marketable and then ride those jobs in the early parts of their careers. Once they have become established, and have significant contacts and other resources at their disposal, they can start breaking out of their type and into other parts. We see this sort of thing all the time. When “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” came out, for example, who would have thought that Sean Penn would someday be nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of a severely autistic man in “I Am Sam?” Did anybody see her role in “Monster” on the horizon when Charlize Theron co-starred with a computer-animated gorilla in “Mighty Joe Young?”

How we start out does not always indicate how we are going to end up!

Last week Alice Ghostley of “Bewitched” fame passed away (the original television series, not the Nicole Kidman movie remake). In 1990 Ghostley gave an interview to The Boston Globe about the early days of her career. Here is an excerpt:

“I knew I didn’t look like an ingénue. My nose was too long. I had crooked teeth. I wasn’t blond. I knew I looked like a character actress. But I also knew I’d find a way.”

I believe it vitally important for professional actors to understand exactly how the industry perceives them. If you don’t like the way you are seen and want to fight against it that’s your choice, but you at least have to know exactly what the perception is that you are fighting against! Only then can the work begin—either pursuing opportunities within your type, or making the adjustments in your approach to finding work that will be necessary to develop a new dimension for your career.

I have over time developed a series of type exercises that I find extremely helpful in understanding how I fit, and don’t fit, into the industry. I assign these exercises all the time to my members. To learn more, please contact me at TVI Actors Studio in New York City.

Well, here we are…Fall is upon us in this back-to-school season where money always seems to be a little tight. We overspent on that summer trip, we didn’t budget enough for the school supplies, we realize that old winter coat ain’t gonna cut it this year and what gets pushed aside…investments in your craft. So, when we have no money, what can we do to keep our instincts and abilities fresh and at their best? Here’s a few ideas from some actors in the same boat…

1) Use the down time to read new material to improve your knowledge of plays/scripts.
2) Get double the bang and look for new audition material as you read the new pieces.
3) Pull out the old monologues you threw away 6 months ago and see how you can approach it now, what do you discover?
4) Get 5 friends together for pizza and wine – cheap pizza and CHEAP wine – and read a play together. Really discuss the characters and how they came out with the reading by your fellow actors. If your group were to produce this play, what would be the major challenges? Really get into some in-depth script analysis.
5) Do research online – what shows are on TV this fall, and who’s casting them? Talk to your agent about going in for those shows.
6) No agent – start talking to your friends and give them a picture and resume with a cover letter to take to their agent. Referrals are a great way to open doors.
7) Get to the gym! Winter is approaching, but you must keep your body – as well as your mind – sharp and ready for anything.
Find ways to compromise without breaking your spirit, so you can save some money for class next month.

Remember – actors never stop learning. We are in the occupation of studying life and as long as life keeps changing, we must keep up with the learning curve. So be creative – after all, you are an artist.

Recently I had an audition for a play. I came in for a specific role, although after seeing my work the director asked if I wouldn’t mind staying longer and reading for a different role. This isn’t unusual, and I have to admit it’s not my favorite occurrence as I am a big believer in hours and hours of preparation for each audition, but what can you do? I’m obviously not being considered for the first part, and I’d rather get a crack at something else then just go home.

As it turns out I must have shown them something good in the new role because the director complimented my work and did something very rare—she informed me that I would receive a callback, and that I should be thinking more about the new part I just read for, than the old part I had originally prepared. No problem! It’s nice to get that kind of instant feedback in an audition.

The next day my agents called and told me that I did indeed have a callback, but for the original role I prepared for, and not the new role the director had told me to think about. I reminded my agents of what had transpired in the room and as politely as possible asked them to double-check the information—I did not want to prepare the wrong part twice! They checked and assured me that the director must have changed her mind—I was to be seen at the callback for the original role.

Do you know where this is headed? I spent many hours preparing my callback material. I got to the callback early, warmed up, signed in, and was promptly pulled aside by a casting assistant. Apparently, there was a miscue between the director and the casting director, and you guessed it, I had once again prepared the wrong material. They handed me the callback material for the other part and I once again scrambled in my few precious minutes to get ready.

Now at this point I suppose I could have thrown a fit. I could have yelled at my agents for not checking more thoroughly, the casting director for making a mistake, and the director for putting me on the spot. Unfortunately, I have seen actors on numerous occasions and in similar circumstances do all of these things and more.

But wait a minute. To blow up like that would be a very short-sighted response. True, I got a raw deal. But let’s examine all of the facts. The director and casting director gave me a callback. They like my work! Both of them will undoubtedly be involved in the casting of many projects in the future that will contain parts for which I am or will be right. Is it really worth damaging my relationship with them and losing all of those future opportunities just so I can vent? Absolutely not. Plus, I’m clearly still in the running for this part!

Let us all remember that industry professionals are human and sometimes make mistakes. Were I to take them to task for an honest error I invite them to judge me by the same impossible standards of perfection in turn. It’s the Golden Rule in action.