Newly launched Showcase Base is an online platform connecting drama school graduates with the people who want to sign them, cast them, and work with them. It was founded by actors Olivia Beardsley and Isaac Stanmore, who sat down with Backstage to tell us all about it.
Why did you set up Showcase Base?
Showcase Base began life back in March 2020 as Showcase 2020. While originally set up to respond to the pandemic, it quickly became apparent that there is a huge appetite for online showcasing and the benefits it provides. While continuing to run Showcase 2020, we began work behind the scenes to build a brand new platform to incorporate all of our new ideas and to be able to introduce more features for everyone.
Which lessons did you learn from creating Showcase 2020 in response to the pandemic?
If you have a good idea, just start right away. Speed was such a factor in our success – from idea to launch for Showcase 2020 was just 10 days – and often, the simplest way of doing things is the most effective.
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Why do you feel it’s something the industry still needs post-pandemic?
Online showcasing is a chance to completely re-imagine how we find, cast, and sign new talent in this industry, providing solutions to issues that have been around for a long time. Problems like availability – if a casting director is in castings, or a director rehearsing, they simply can’t make an in-person showcase. With dozens of showcases up and down the UK, the reality of an agent or casting director being able to see them all is unrealistic. By going online, industry professionals can save time and money while also seeing more graduates.
How will Showcase Base help access to and for actors in the future?
It connects graduates and the people who want to sign them, cast them, and work with them. While traditional showcases are on a specific day, at a specific time, in a specific place, by going online we can showcase graduates 24/7. And everyone benefits: graduates are in control of what and how they showcase, and by flagging their location using our Smart Regions, they can highlight themselves to their local industry. They can receive and reply to messages from industry professionals directly on the site. Industry members can find local talent regardless of where they’re training in the UK, and all the saved travel means more time to see showcases at a fraction of the cost. We let industry members create lists for projects, so they can cast directly from the site. By making everyone’s job easier, we can get more graduates seen and signed and save people time and money in the process.
How has your experience as actors helped inform the work you are doing with Showcase Base?
Because we are actors, we have gone through “graduation season” and totally get and understand the pressure that it puts on graduates. We also know what a good self-tape looks like and, as we both have over 10 years’ experience in the industry, we have plenty of experience with the business side of being an actor. Showcase Base is all about providing access – taking the pressure off of graduates and industry around showcase season.
Self-Taping: A Complete Guide for UK Actors What is your mission?
Our aim is for Showcase Base to be the Number 1 platform to connect drama school graduates with anyone who wants to sign, cast, and work with them. By creating a centralised hub, our mission is to enable graduates to showcase themselves more effectively and allow industry members to find them in the easiest and most exciting way possible. With many more ideas still to come, and the limitless opportunities going online creates, we intend for Showcase Base to be recognised as the industry standard for online showcasing.
Any success stories you’d like to share from the platform last year?
We’ve had so much great feedback from both the industry and graduates telling us what a useful platform this is. We receive emails from graduates who tell us they’ve acquired representation through the site, which is just awesome. Agents have spoken to us about how they’ve been using it as a centralised database of graduates they’ve seen, and we even had one casting director hop onto a zoom workshop we were hosting to tell us that through the website they had seen more showcases in 2020 than they ever had before.
Sign up to Showcase Base here.
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