Where should you move to after graduation? Where can you find additional training? How can you prepare a showcase if your school doesn’t have one? What is your best chance of finding an agent? How can you get better at auditioning? What is it like to be part of a national tour? How can you get work in corporate entertainment? How can you use your acting talents and skills to do more than just entertain?
You’ll find answers to all of these questions in this book. The conversations and essays in the pages that follow will address the most common concerns actors have, as well as little known secrets about the business and topics that are often considered taboo—for instance, can you “take a break” from acting, or does that make you less than your actor friends?
If you’re an actor, you’ve no doubt questioned your career choice on any number of occasions. And you might now be looking at the graphic below that scarily denotes the cyclical nature of the acting business and wonder again whether your decision to embark on this career was a wise one. Is this really a business you want to pursue with passion and conviction?
You get started, you stick with it, you achieve success, you keep pushing for more success, and then you start all over again. The implication is that you’ll lose your success somewhere along the way—that the need to begin again is due to a fall.
There will be some stumbles in this career, certainly. But that would be true in any career, in any industry. Sure, an actor’s career is admittedly less stable than many other professions, but the fact that there’s risk involved isn’t itself unique to acting.
Besides, you’re accustomed to risk. You risk putting yourself out there, opening yourself to judgment every day. That’s your job. You dare to entertain. And with that dare, you invite the possibility of a standing ovation on a good night and people leaving the theater early on a bad night.
You know this by now. You can’t achieve great success without risking great failure. As John F. Kennedy said, “only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”1
The cyclical nature of the acting business isn’t something you cycle through once or twice in a lifetime. As a working actor, you’ll move through this process weekly or daily if you’re auditioning regularly. You’ll become accustomed to throwing out your sides (script pages) after every audition. You’ll begin again regularly and repeatedly, and with time you’ll become used to this process. Before you know it, engaging in the business of acting will be as second nature as engaging in the craft of acting.
How to Use This Book
This book is about the business of acting. There are other books that reinforce craft, the tasks associated with developing your skills and talents as an actor. But this book is specifically about the work involved with becoming a professional actor.
You don’t have to read it cover to cover. It won’t benefit you necessarily to read the essays and interviews in order—although there’s certainly nothing wrong with that approach. But the book is structured so that you can pick and choose what to read when, at the pace that works best for you. Flip through the pages and browse the interviewee introductions and contributor bios. This will give you a glimpse of the personalities, successes, and individual perspectives on building a life in the theater.
What you’ll find in this book is insider insight into the day-to-day life of an actor. What is it like to be a struggling actor? What is it like to be a working actor? What is it like to be one of the most celebrated and successful actors in the world?
You’ll hear from a range of actors, directors, agents, acting coaches, professors, vocal trainers, and artistic directors in this book. You’ll read stories about people who started their own theaters, or worked their way from Off-Broadway to Broadway to film or television. You’ll read about overcoming physical challenges, emotional challenges, and financial challenges. You’ll learn how theater can support your efforts to achieve a greater good while at the same time bringing you immeasurable personal reward.
You’ll find out what traditional agents are looking for, as well as booking agents for corporate acting gigs. You’ll get perspectives from agents in England and Canada, from acting coaches and directors in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. You’ll hear words of wisdom from Ellen Burstyn and her five decades’ acting in theater, film, and television in New York and Los Angeles. You’ll get the opinion of a working theater actor in Berlin, and a 100-year-old stage actor in India.
The range of advice, wisdom, and stories you’ll read in this book is meant to give you perspective. The essays and interviews are grouped thematically, exploring the broad ideas of “Getting Started,” “Sticking It Out,” “Finding Success,” “Getting Ahead,” and “Starting Again.” These groupings, however, do not indicate that what you’ll find in each chapter is a logically ordered list of how-to advice. You won’t!
Some interviews include topical questions and responses about how to approach specific goals and situations as a theater actor, and others take a broader exploratory approach, with the interviewees sharing personal narratives or opinions about some of the more intangible aspects of the career. The same is true of the essays. You’ll find a range of scope, from direct advice to calls to action to interview snippets with multiple working actors.
The key is this: Don’t look for advice alone. Look for insights. Look for new ways of approaching challenging aspects of the career. Look for information about the realities of the business. Above all else, look for a deeper understanding of how to celebrate the pursuit of success as well as the result of success.
Note
1 “Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, accessed May 1, 2016, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Day-of-Affirmation-Address-as-delivered.aspx.