Backstage Louisiana Readers’ Choice winner Flo Young’s television and film career didn’t take off until she moved down to the Bayou State. A Mississippi native, the acting coach studied the craft in New York City for 15 years, working in the theater and getting her master’s degree at the New School before training with the Actors Studio and then moving to Los Angeles.
Struggling to get her premerger SAG card, Young says her sister urged her to check out the opportunities Louisiana offered. And while she thought she’d stay only a short while, there were more than a few reasons to keep Young down South.
“When I got here as an actor, I was getting much better opportunities than I was getting in New York or L.A.,” she says. “In that particular time and place, I was getting really great auditions and narrative projects. In L.A., I was stuck with commercial auditions, which was driving me bonkers!”
Young notes that while the lifestyle is “a bit easier” and the industry is “more accessible,” the smaller market certainly raises the stakes. “It did scare me at first that it’s a smaller market because it is a small town, so your reputation counts for so much,” she admits—a valuable lesson she makes sure to pass on to her students.
As a teacher at her studio, NOLA Actors Lab, Young offers two levels of classes, as well as private coaching sessions—all while still pursuing her own acting career. With a background in Method acting, the coach offers a Level 1 class covering “the basic concepts, actions, and objectives, breaking down scenes and beats, and talking and listening, as well as character circumstance and objectives,” while her Level 2 class is slightly more exclusive and meant for working actors who’ve “studied extensively.”
When she’s not training her students at home, Young frequents the Actors Studio to work out her own muscles. Despite finding success in the Southern U.S., she encourages actors to remember that even though Louisiana is a more accessible market, it’s still as competitive as New York or Los Angeles—“but it’s a great place to get your SAG-AFTRA card!”
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