Dear Jackie:
I just wanted to add a comment to your answer to Chris Boykin [Back Stage, Feb. 7, 2008].
I was shaking my head in disbelief when he wrote that there is not a shortage of work for actors but "a shortage of good actors." Boykin should be told that good actors come a dime a dozen. I've seen them in my schools, my classes, workshops, auditions, and the too occasional jobs that I get. These actors far outnumber the parts available for them.
What there is, perhaps, is a shortage of actors who are intelligent, committed, and hard-working enough to know the business and how they fit into it, as well as who have the faith to stick it out to the end, never knowing when or if their break will come.
In my more than 10 years in this business, I have seen many fellow actors not work hard enough, become disenchanted and quit, or go on to another field so they could marry and have children. It seems like there are not that many actors who are willing to forgo a lot of the opportunities and conveniences that people in other, more stable professions have.
Incidentally, I am going on 41 years old, still trying for a career in film and TV and theatre, still looking for that solid day job which allows me to go to auditions and pay the rent simultaneously, still wondering if I will ever be a dad one day, but still not giving up.
I believe there is a shortage of people like me. I hope so, so maybe I can get a darn job someday.
-- VA
Queens, N.Y.
Dear Jackie:
You haven't given me the wrong impression about there being an abundance of paid acting work -- or that it's easy to come by. What you have given me is the perspective of someone who has experience in the business that I'm journeying into. My presupposition about there being "a ton of work" should have read more like "a lot of opportunities" -- but point well taken.
-- Chris Boykin
Baltimore, Md.
Dear Jackie:
I have been a member of Equity for about a year now. Throughout this time, I have been going to six or seven Equity principal auditions a week. Very often I get highly enthusiastic feedback, which I have been training myself to ignore, since it very rarely leads to a callback. You know that many casting offices send assistants to sit behind the table, and it is clear that many of them have no intention of casting anybody -- even if they really like someone. I'm almost certain they will never go back to their superior and risk praising a "nobody."
What should I feel when I walk into a room and see a very young individual behind the table who surely doesn't know as much about theatre as I do? This may sound disrespectful, but what about the casting director who sends that person to sit behind the table and waste actors' time? Is that not disrespectful? I have often heard casting people encourage actors to go to EPAs, but I have simply stopped believing that, for the major projects, there's any point. Certainly I will keep going to them as far as regional and summer-stock casting is concerned, but otherwise I don't know. Why are casting personnel so insecure that they won't consider someone who has not come through an agent?
I work very hard at my craft, but given the state of the casting system, how is it possible not to lose heart?
-- ES
via the Internet
Dear ES:
Years ago I shared an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with a very talented actor. She too had come from California, where I had seen her perform Shakespeare and wished I could do what she did in the way she did it. Later, in graduate school, where she was a year ahead of me, I had plenty of opportunities to compare myself, unfavorably, to her. She moved to New York before I did, got a commercial agent, and began making money immediately.
When I got to New York, I was fortunate enough to land representation with a theatrical agency that got me in to read for all the big theatre projects. My roommate, unable to parlay her commercial rep into a theatrical one, dutifully slogged through the EPAs. I will never forget her excitedly telling me about an EPA she had for Nina in a regional production of The Seagull. I had auditioned for the same role months earlier and knew it was already cast. What made matters worse is that she deserved the read far more than I did; I was a horrible fit for Nina -- much more the depressive, insecure Masha type -- and she would have been resplendent in the role.
Fair this profession is not. EPAs happen because Equity theatres are required to hold them. You are correct that many theatres send assistants and have no intention of reviewing the talent found there. This isn't due to any risks or insecurities on the casting end. It comes simply from casting's attempt to manage the unmanageable. There are too many choices, too many actors, for any casting director to consider them all. The job of casting, for better or worse, is not to find the best possible actor for each role. If that were the case, they'd have to review thousands -- maybe tens of thousands -- of actors for each part. Instead, the job is to create a manageable pool of actors likely to fit the role and to pull out the best ones to pass on to the director. Agents fit into this scenario by, in effect, vouching for their clients, pushing them into the "likely" category and removing some of the unknown from the casting directors' jobs. Agents provide what is in essence a referral to a human-resources director flooded with résumés. It makes sense. Would you rather get a haircut from a stylist recommended by a friend or pick one from the phone book at random?
The system is imperfect at best. Perhaps Equity should abolish the required EPA altogether. Yes, a few chance opportunities would be lost, but maybe salvaging the collective waste of time of so many actors vying for roles that are nearly impossible to land would be worth the sacrifice.
I will pose that question to Actors' Equity Association and would also like to hear from readers. Please email me if you have an EPA story to share. Have you booked a job through an EPA? Was it for a major production? How many hours have you spent at EPAs? What do you think of the system?
In the meantime, ES, try not to lose heart. Focus fully on the smaller projects you mentioned. Redouble your efforts to find a hard-working agent, and stop -- at least in the short term -- doing those EPAs that do nothing but frustrate you.
Jackie Apodaca can be reached at TheWorkingActor@gmail.com.