"I assume that the reason anyone engages a casting director is for efficiency," says casting director Joe McConnell. "Efficient, and innovative—someone's got to get the job of helping the director execute his or her ideal vision of someone for the role. So you're there to be resourceful. You're a yenta."
A key part of the strategy is not only the physical look of the potential performers coming through the door, but what credits have earned the performer the right or the expectation to be there. This is where having a stellar resume becomes key.
"It's my job to make sure that I'm providing choices, but not wasting anybody's time," McConnell says, "which is probably why, more than anything else, actors have to make sure that they make their resumes as honest as possible. Because I have to solicit talent that is a 'match,' actors just can't afford to be anything less than that in terms of how they present their experience to me, or to the director."
One such director, Steve Sunderlin, who is also artistic director of the Vital Theatre Company, expects and puts a premium on such honesty. Sunderlin tires of the mistakes that he sees, given the kind of time and dedication he invests in his own craft.
"To me, it's the integrity of the actor. And the longer you're in this business, you can tell when someone isn't being truthful—it becomes obvious to me when people are embellishing their resume. There's a specific studio that sometimes shows some scenes, and once I had an actor who had done scenes from classic plays there, and he listed those as his credits. It's like, you know it's a studio, you know they don't do productions, who are they trying to kid?"
The following will show you why there's never a need to play games. Here's a look at how to develop a hard-hitting, honest, to-your-advantage, easy-to-access theatrical resume.
Vital Statistics
Every resume has a short but important list of elements that need to appear—and appear prominently—or else it will likely be judged insufficient and unprofessional. It's not a long list—beginning with your name and a contact phone number (preferably a service, or better still, voice mail, or even better still, a direct cell number to avoid phone tag). You must provide a full accounting of union affiliations and any current representation. Sometimes, according to Joe McConnell, items that seem such a natural part of common sense are among the most common elements missing from a resume. "You'd be surprised...it actually happens maybe 10% of the time that people don't include something as logical as a phone number," sighed McConnell.
You will also want to provide those taking a look at your resume with a thorough and up-to-date sense of your physical dimensions, so include your height (to the inch), weight (to the pound, with apologies), hair color (generally), and eye color. Clothing sizes become relevant only if someone is assembling a modeling resume, and vocal range is relevant for the singer or musical performer, particularly one with few credits. Some casting directors argue that a sense of vocal range is something preferable to know about regardless of any interest in musical theatre, since actors in the modern era must be equally adept at as many different kinds of performance as possible. Still, this is a personal choice that may or may not reflect on the salability of the resume, depending on who is looking at it and what the job requires. Offering citizenship status and a social security number can also be helpful, particularly if your representation prefers it. Don't, however, make assumptions in this case—always ask, and follow directions.
General Notes on Credits
Actors sometimes think they are being impressive when they try to squeeze in every single credit. "It's overwhelming," said Renee Panichelli. "Worse yet are actors—who, I'm afraid, are very often older—who don't have a computer or know how to use one. So they end up writing in ink—and in script, which is impossible to read—all their recent credits; they end up writing them going up the side of the page of the resume or wherever they can put it. The most important thing is to format your resume in a legible manner."
"Generally, if you do have some credits—meaning film, TV, downtown theatre, or whatever it is—list the roles that are largest first, but only list those that actually represent roles that would fit who you are if you were out auditioning in the marketplace. If you're 18 years old, don't put down your tour de force as Willy Loman at the top of the page because, let's be honest, no one's going to cast you as Willy. Be realistic about it."
Joe McConnell echoed the call to realism, especially where directors are concerned. "Sometimes," says McConnell, "it can be a good idea to list directors you've worked with—a very good idea, actually—but only if the directors are important or well known in the industry or otherwise impressive." A good rule of thumb, then, is that the more important or prominent the director, the more advantageous and impressive it will be to place his name in association with yours on your resume. Finally, "Don't ever say you were cast in a show that you weren't really in," advised McConnell. "Someone is going to call you on it, and that's the worst thing that can happen to you in an audition."
Kathryn Foster, despite the fact that she's only a year or so out of undergraduate school, has always been diligent about maintaining her resume in a current fashion. "Slowly but surely, you just kind of throw things off as you progress," she says. "When I was at NYU and I got into a mainstage show, I just replaced that high school thing no one had ever heard of, or when I did that regional show, I replaced that production of 'The Trojan Women' that no one had heard of. I keep the shows that are recognizable, ones where the characters are recognizable characters."
More Notes on Credits: Staying Organized
The section that lists your credits usually begins by genre: "Theatre," "Film," "Television," and "Commercials." If you have a great deal of experience in one particular genre (typically theatre), you may choose to break things down even more specifically, separating out "Off-Broadway" from "Off-Off Broadway," and making a separate listing for "Regional and Stock" or "Tours." Be careful, though, because the differences between professional and non-professional theatre, and between genres, may be fuzzy, subjective, and minute. While the community theatre production you did in Staten Island in 1991 may have been reviewed (favorably), the professional theatre community will likely refuse to recognize it as a "legitimate" production.
"List upon request" may be all you wish to put under the commercial section if you have a significant number of them under your belt. Or, if you have only a few, you may wish to list them to make it obvious that you have on-camera experience. (Some early-career actors will disclose on their resumes any on-camera training—not as good as actual experience, of course, but clearly a step in the right direction.) For smaller film and TV experience, you can just cite the name of the show, since one assumes only larger parts will have character names. A general difference between East and West Coast resumes is that New York actors usually list their theatre credits first, while West Coast actors list film and TV credits first. However, this is not a hard and fast rule; actors should list what they consider their most impressive credits first. Once you've arrived at a satisfactory layout for your resume, it isn't hard to develop two of them, depending on what you are submitting yourself for.
Treating Your Training, Surveying Your Special Skills
"I've had people turn red when I ask them about their 'special skills,' says Steve Sunderlin. "Basically, don't put a special skills section on your resume unless you can do it and do it well. One guy said he spoke Russian and I asked him to do his monologue in Russian and he couldn't. The resume said he spoke Russian fluently. He said he spoke a little."
With this cautionary tale in mind, you may elect to provide a section that will show the casting director where and with whom you trained, and that will identify the areas and extent of your training in acting, voice, dance, and related theatre skills. It isn't necessary to list every person with whom you ever took a seminar, but list names that might be familiar to people in the industry. Include apprenticeships or internships with highly regarded theatres here, even if you worked in a non-acting capacity.
The "special skills" section should show related talents that might be useful in commercial work, or that could be an extra attraction to a theatre company. Start with theatre-related skills like stage combat, acrobatics, musical instruments, accents, and dialects. Include athletic abilities, and whether you drive a car (standard and/or automatic). You can add to the list almost anything you do well: photography, graphic design, American Sign Language, carpentry, electronics, etc.
Most commercial agencies have a special-skills file to run to when they're looking for jugglers, equestrians, and so forth. The list of skills that could be useful to a theatre company or in a particular commercial or industrial is almost endless, and these things can also generate conversation at an interview or audition.
Two caveats on the special-skills section: Don't get too cute, and don't put down anything you can't back up. If your resume indicates that you do a bang-up "Donald Duck imitation," be prepared to start quacking Disney-style. As Sunderlin points out, every dialect you list should be one you actually could do at an audition, if called for, without any special preparation.
Getting Your Graphic Image
You should give the layout and composition of your resume every bit as much energy as you devoted to your photo: You want to project a professional image, but at the same time create a look that "feels right" for you. Go to a copy center where there is a display of resumes, and step back from a group of them. Which draw your eye? Things like typeface, lines, borders, "white space," and arrangement of copy lines will make a resume not only striking-looking, but easy to read.
With the ready availability of desktop publishing, image scanning, clip art, and the like, there is every opportunity for creating an attractive and unique professional resume. Today, most actors maintain their own resumes, preferring to allocate the funds they might have spent on professional preparation and putting it toward, for example, additional headshots or a higher-quality photographer or photographic paper. Pay attention at auditions, and you'll see around you fancy borders, small photo reproductions, and creative typefaces and unusual paper stock, all making up individualized resumes that stand out from the crowd. The trick is to stay on the side of "professional" and not cross the thin line into "cutesy," "overdone," or just "trying too hard." It's a question of taste, for the most part.
You may have the capabilities for doing your resume yourself on a computer with a high-quality (preferably laser) printer. If you can't do your own resumes, be sure you find a service that offers not only high-quality graphics, but also a storage service, so that your resume can be simply—and cheaply—updated as needed. Once you are satisfied with the look of your original, you're ready to reproduce it, remembering that the layout of the resume must fall within an 8"x10" space, so it can be trimmed to be attached to the back of your photo without overlapping edges.
Finally, it's a bad idea to use services that will take your pre-formatted resume and photocopy it onto the back of your headshot. For Milda DeVoe, "I tried getting my resume printed on the back of my photo and then I found that I got new gigs faster than I could update the resume, so I asked that [the service in question] cancel the print job. Their policy is to give store credit—which was fine with me, as I use the place all the time. But here's the sleaze-factor: The guy who owns the place categorically refuses to allow me to use my $60 store credit for anything other than resumes on the back of 8"x10s"! So for two years now, I have carried this ratty piece of yellow paper back to the counter when I reprint my photos or get new ones or buy postcards—and each time, I'm denied. Someday, maybe that guy will take a vacation. His assistants are all perfectly reasonable human beings."
Marketing Yourself
Once you have created the ultimate picture and resume combination, you must now decide what to do with it. Aside from submitting it when requested and bringing it with you to auditions, how will you distribute it to the people you want to impress? Here's some advice:
Target your mailings carefully. Rather than blanketing the city with your headshot, make a concerted effort and research your target. If you've decided that your first step is to get an agent, decide if you're looking for a commercial agent or one for film and legit theatre work.
Do your research. Find out which agents are most open to new talent; find out how they like to be approached. Do you need to mail to every agent in a particular agency, or just to one? If you wish to concentrate on regional theatre work, find out which theatres have someone in-house in charge of casting, and which use freelance casting directors.
Include a brief, professional note or cover letter specifically stating what you wish to achieve by sending your picture and resume. For example, "Please consider me for the role of _________ in your upcoming production of _________." Bear in mind that all directors are busy, and correspondence should be kept to a minimum. "A lot of people send cover letters," says Steve Sunderlin, "and it's obvious they've spent time writing it. One of the things I've noticed is that people who know me put a post-it note, saying, 'I've auditioned for you before,' or whatever, and it's really nice to get a handwritten note. It makes it personal without having to read through a cover letter, and it's also easier to stack up."
Keep in touch once you have gotten your picture and resume in the casting director's file: "Just booked a national Citibank commercial!" or "Hope you can catch me in my network TV debut, Oct. 15 on 'Law & Order,' playing a streetwise social worker." In this case, continue to keep your correspondence short. "You don't want to give the impression that you have too much time on your hands," Jeremy Koch says. "Scribble a note so you make contact, but don't take so much time that they think you don't have much else going on. Also, no colored paper, no three different fonts—especially in New York, where everyone needs to be honest."
Keep careful records of your contacts. Agents and casting directors are in constant flux, and you always need to be up on their whereabouts. If you don't have a computer, or a good record-keeping system, you might look into one of the services like Shakespeare Theatrical Mailing Service or a similar service (look for ads in this issue of Back Stage). Such services will help you map out a game plan and then do all your mailings for you.
How about the Internet? Is that a viable way of getting into the right casting offices? At this point in time, it still isn't a substitute for filing cabinets lining the offices of casting directors or agents. No online service has yet developed which supports enough actors—especially those at a high level of talent and experience—to make it efficient for agents to find new clients, or for casting directors to discover talent to bring to auditions.
In conclusion, remember that every actor's headshot and resume experience is unique. Perhaps that goes without saying. Still, consider Peter Brown, currently starring in the Untitled Theatre Company #61's production of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," part of the Ionesco Festival that is causing avant-garde shockwaves in the downtown theatre community. Moving to New York in 1991 directly from Earlham College in Richmond, Va., he had a headshot of himself taken while still in school and then got better ones after checking out some of the photographers who advertise in the pages of Back Stage.
"Columbus Day 1993 was the last time I had my headshot taken," Brown says. "And I know I'm due for an update at this point. But I've wound up getting most of the work I've gotten through people who know me. I've done a lot of East Village theatre—the House of Candles and Nada—and a lot of the audiences in that general area tend to be actor-slash-writer-slash-director, who see me and say, 'I'd like to use that guy.' The vast majority of this is nonpaying work, of course.
"But I've been thinking I should get a new photo, just in case, to cover all the bases. I'd like my headshot to say, as always, that I'm a warm, sensitive, serious actor who's no trouble and very talented—or at least come close to that. It's a trick to make me interesting—make me interesting on an interesting day."
All that one can ask for, that's for certain.