For agent Ginger Dicce, there is no such thing as a typical day. In her 23 years in the business, she's never had a chance to fall into routine. "This is not the corporate world, where it's set that at 9 a.m. we have a meeting with all our coffee cups," she says. "This is a creative industry, where everything depends."
Dicce, who represents adult and child actors for theatre, film, television, commercials, and print, conducts all her business — including new-actor interviews and auditions — from a small suite with the help of one assistant. "Actors don't need much space to audition; they don't need a stage with 440 seats," Dicce says. "And if you're an actor and the phone rings in here, you have to be able to adapt to noise."
A Brooklyn, N.Y., native, Dicce began as an on-camera and voiceover producer. It was her affinity for actors that made her decide to become an agent. "I always loved working with the actors," she says. "I found them creative and innovative, and I enjoyed the process of seeing them bring a character to life."
Though she says she can be tough on her clients, she assures them that it's not personal: "I'm not here to hand-hold and tell you what you want to hear, but I'm on the actors' side because I want them to work. I'm tough because I know what I want, but to get to know me is to love me."
Despite her unpredictable schedule, Dicce outlined a typical day in the life of an agent — but with the caveat that in this business, anything can happen.
9 a.m.
Dicce arrives at her office in midtown Manhattan near Times Square. The room is cluttered with files and headshots, but the agent insists she has it all under control. "There's a method to my madness," she says with a laugh. "I also happen to have a very good memory."
9-10 a.m.
The first hour is spent reading new emails and dealing with the issues they present. A recent example: A producer informed her that a job had been canceled, so Dicce called all her clients who had auditions scheduled and told them not to show up. This is not an everyday occurrence, she says, but the current economy has decreased an actor's odds of booking work: "These days things are a bit slow. I've found that recently there's a great imbalance in the system because there are far more actors than there are jobs."
10-11 a.m.
Dicce follows up on emails from her clients. She answers their questions, confirms their availability for auditions and jobs, and checks that her payments are in order — she receives a 10 percent commission each time a client books a job. Many of her actors fly to Los Angeles for film, TV, and commercial parts, and occasionally they call her for unconventional reasons. "If they're auditioning for a role with a Brooklyn accent," she says in her Brooklyn accent, "they'll call me to listen."
11 a.m.
Dicce reviews the new breakdowns delivered each morning via email, then submits headshots and résumés from her talent base to casting directors and producers. Projects today have a variety of needs, she says, so she maintains a diverse pool of actors: "In the old days when I was starting out, it was the blond-haired, blue-eyed period. These days there are calls for every shape, size, and ethnicity, and to date I've never sent anybody on the wrong call. I think that's why I get business."
Once in a while, however, a booking catches her off-guard: "A long time ago, I had auditioned this actor who was very good, so I sent him on an audition for a commercial, not knowing that he was going to bring his dog. Turned out there was a dog casting for a reaction shot, and the dog booked it. The actor didn't."
Noon-1 p.m.
Bookkeeping and billing.
1-2 p.m.
Lunch. Her assistant arrives and sorts the snail mail.
2-3 p.m.
Dicce reviews her mail. She says she receives 500 to 600 mailings from actors per week, and she reads every single one. Who she calls in for an audition, however, depends on the content. On headshots, she says, "I don't want a glamorous, retouched headshot. If I call you in for an interview, I want you to look like your picture." On résumés: "I'm not looking for someone who went to a fabulous college, but I do look for training, because you have to show me that you're doing your part. I work hard at my job, and my actors should work hard too."
3-4 p.m.
Dicce arranges appointments with new actors. Her assistant calls the potential clients, who are asked to bring a prepared monologue to read in the office. "I don't prefer monologues with a lot of screaming and yelling," Dicce says, "and I also don't prefer Shakespearean monologues. Those kinds of monologues don't show me what you can realistically do" for a casting director.
4-6 p.m.
Late afternoons are reserved for interviews and auditions with actors seeking representation. Dicce says she can't define the perfect actor; her decisions about an actor's marketability are based on intuition: "I know in my gut whether I can work with you or can't. If I could bottle that feeling and sell it, I know I'd make a lot of money." One of Dicce's pet peeves is actors who arrive late and unprepared. "What you do in here you're going to do when I send you on auditions," she says. "You've got to be professional, and even if you're new, there's still a way of interviewing. I can't teach you that. That comes from a basic school of etiquette."
A surprising number of actors are not only unprepared but unaware of what an agent does. "Sometimes I have actors come in who think that I'm going to just give them a role," Dicce says. "That's not how it works. I send actors to auditions, and it's up to them to get the job."
6 p.m.
Barring late appointments, Dicce leaves for the day — if she's lucky. "It's a long day," she says. "If I'm here too late, I start pulling my hair out."
But the thrill of a booked job keeps her ticking: "Just last week I booked a print job for a little baby who was absolutely beautiful, and just to tell the parents that she booked it was my joy. When an actor books a job, their excitement is my excitement. I don't think that makes me too tough."
Write to the author at halley.bondy@backstage.com.