Backstage Experts

How To Audition Internationally

Casting director Heidi Levitt shares how actors and casting directors can work internationally.

Don't Audition. Showcase.

Why do I call it a "showcase" instead of an "audition"? Because this is your time to shine! This is what you moved to L.A. for!

4 Things to Consider When Finding an Acting Teacher

The teachers you choose to train with will be a major influence in the development of your craft, and thus will have a strong impact on your career.

Why You Need to Do It Yourself

The truth is that actors are innovators by nature – a core skill is the ability to reinvent yourself and to create a character. But, it is more and more clear that with the changes in technology and the need to search and create opportunity, actors must take the reins of ...

How To Find Your Acting Sweet Spot

Your sweet spot is the specific behavior you propel into a character that’s singular to you. Your ability to recognize it and then radiate it to your audience is your launching pad for tangible artistic success.

Why Actors Misinform Other Actors: Ignorance or Deceit?

Never—until I jumped the casting table from actor to director, casting director, and teacher—had I realized how much inept, incorrect, assumed information about the entertainment business and how-to-be-an-actor is spread by incompetent, misinformed actors themselves.

Why Letting Go Of Negative Thoughts Could Land You An Agent

We often find living our creative lives (and the accomplishing of our goals) to be a haphazard experience. This is partly due to our mind’s many thoughts telling us we can’t have what we truly desire.

Why Technology Is the New Casting Industry Standard

Since I'm involved with actors worldwide, I've seen a shift lately in terms of an abundance of "too-good-to-be-true" casting notices, i.e. sites that claim that if you pay their membership fee they will introduce you to casting directors.

12 Steps to Surviving Open Casting Calls for Parents

While we rarely conduct open calls, sometimes clients request them for specific reasons. And so it was that several hundred babies, kids, and toddlers recently tottered through our doors over the course of a long Saturday.

Why You Should Never Play It Safe as an Actor

Be really good. Be really bad. Just don’t be boring. That really says it all. In life and in our acting — the goal is to be fully expressed.