The Starry Messenger Extends Limited Run

Posted on November 30, 2009 by East Coast editor

The New Group’s The Starry Messenger, With Matthew Broderick, Extends Limited Run. See story on Broadway.com

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Beyond the horizon

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Matt D

“Marketability” is a word that comes up often in my work as a career coach.  This is due to the two-faced nature of the life of a professional actor.  Yes, we are artists.  But because we seek to ply our craft in other people’s projects, we also have to be business people.  If you’re marketing plan is to shell out a few hundred dollars on a picture and tell anyone that will listen that you’re a really good actor, well, you might as well save your money and your breath.  That’s no more a good marketing strategy than buying lottery tickets is a good investment plan.

Being business savvy is therefore clearly important.  Part of that savvy is recognizing and developing your own potential.  Which actor is more marketable:

Actor A has excellent presence in contemporary work, especially for film and television.

Actor B is a triple-threat.  She can act, sing and dance.  She’s equally at home in Shakespeare or primetime drama, on a stage or in front of a camera.

They’re both really good actors, but Actor B can successfully work in many, many more mediums and formats than Actor A.  She will therefore get more auditions, and if she’s as good as she’s supposed to be, that means she’ll work all the time.

What undeveloped potential resides in you?  Could you book classical work if you just bothered to spend a few months in an outstanding Shakespeare class?  Would musical theatre doors open for you if you invested in a year of vocal coaching?

Working sometimes is great.  Working all the time is even better.  But nobody’s going to hand it to you on a silver platter– if you want it, you have to go out and get it!

Posted in Acting Class, Gigs, Life in New York, Opinion | 2 Comments

Yours truly on primetime television

Posted on July 21, 2008 by Matt D

Hello true believers!  I’m exhausted.  Today is my day off from rehearsals on my new show.  To celebrate I got up at 3:45am to make it to a 6:30am call to shoot two groovy scenes for one of New York City’s hit primetime television series.

So much goes into a location primetime television shoot that I could probably fill up several blog posts about it and I have a feeling that’s exactly what’s going to happen.  Right now today, while I can still move my fingers, I want to concentrate on just on the on-set experience.

If you’ve never had the pleasure let me assure you– a shooting set is the absolute furthest thing from an ideal place in which to practice the art of acting.  It’s noisy, crowded, and everything happens at warp speed.  While the makeup professional dabs your face the director is changing your big line and the cinematographer asks you to turn your face into the light and the cameraman nudges your leg over.  The A.D. is ripping up your old spike mark and putting down a new one.  The producer wants to know what’s taking so long and the last two takes were ruined because a helicopter flew over or a Coast Guard boat flew by in the background and ruined the continuity.  The stuntwoman in the water playing the dead body can’t hold her breath any longer and the sun is going to come out from behind that cloud in 30 seconds and ruin the lighting so this is the absolute last take.  If you screw it up, you won’t be back again.

Ready?

Folks, this stuff is really, really hard!  You have to be on your game to succeed in this kind of environment.  I envy the series regulars.  When the environment I just described is your daily workplace I imagine you adjust to it.  For the rest of us, our only hope is to just flat out be the best we can be.  The necessary level of skill and confidence only comes through training– lots and lots of training.

To do less is to not take the profession seriously.

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Why limit yourself by typing yourself?

Posted on July 10, 2008 by Matt D

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.

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The dos and the do nots

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Matt D

Sorry for the grammatical error in the title, true believers.  I hope it makes sense anyway.

As the summer’s first month concludes I’m starting to see a real difference in the happiness and satisfaction of those that are taking advantage of the usual industry slowdown at this time, and those that seem to be taken advantage by it instead.

As I wrote a few months back, this is the perfect time of year to take a look at the big picture and address whatever isn’t working.  You don’t need to be pounding out those auditions, cold mailings, open calls, and other such daily and weekly activities designed to get you opportunities.  Quite simply, there’s very few opportunities available.   Your time can be better spent.

Rather than spin your wheels and suffer the frustration that inevitably results, this is a good time to do any of the following:

1.) Improve your marketing materials.  Especially if you’re not auditioning as frequently as you like.

2.) Take an acting class.  Especially if you rarely get callbacks.

3.) Take an audition technique class.  Especially if you get callbacks but rarely book.

4.) Network with casting directors and agents.  Especially if you book lots of work on your own and feel like you have gone as far as you can go without the help of industry people.

5.) Save up some money– especially if you can never afford to take a class, or network with agents and casting directors!

The people that are doing these things (the titular “dos”) are feeling good these days.  They have specific goals for the summer that are being addressed, and by achieving these goals they will be more competitive when the fall casting season rolls around.  They’re accelerating their careers.

Those that ignore this kind of advice are languishing through the industry’s slowest time of year, doing nothing to improve their situation.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday weekend!  Be sure to catch the baseball action– lots of good divisional rivalries are yours to enjoy.  I’ll see you next week.

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