Actor-Preneur

I was heading to London after a few days in Paris for meetings in the business class car of Eurostar’s Chunnel service. The day long Actorpreneur workshop in London, I expanded the usual presentation with amazing video interviews with prominent Broadway and Los Angeles professionals.

The all day Intensive included a catered lunch and informative video interviews with Roy Steinberg, TV Producer/Director, Angela Terry, Los Angeles Casting director, Joel Kleinman, Los Angeles Talent Agent, Corey Pepper, an established working actor, Donald Norris, Los Angeles professional headshot photographer, Pat McCorkle, Broadway/Film Casting Director, Bobby Daye, an established Broadway star and Rob Decina, Casting director, CBS Guiding Light.

As many of my readers are in the mid-Atlantc states area, i ran upon a very resourceful site devoted to the Acting Business in this area. Take a look at the Washington Actors Guide.

While a college recruiter will always sell an aspiring actor on a college education as the way to success as an actor, I tend to think that one may want to look twice at the costs and time of spending years in college as opposed to getting to NY or LA and jumping in. While I agree that an education is extremely important, unfortunately few college theatre departments will prepare an actor for a professional career, as I hear from literally hundreds upon hundreds of college theatre grads.

Success as an actor comes from many different avenues, and a college theatre degree is not how many successful actors find their way to an lucrative career. Take TVI alumni Eva Longoria, or Mena Suvari, both extremely successful actress, yet neither with a degree in theatre. Also, Katherine Heigl, with her success on “Grey’s Anatomy” and her new film release “27 Dresses”. Katherine got her start modeling for Sears catalogs in New York. She then did TV commercials, moving onto That Night and King of the Hill. In ‘94, she had a main role in My Father, the Hero playing Gerald Depardieu’s daughter, she followed that with a role in Under Seige 2: Dark Territory playing Steven Segal’s niece.

A wonderful article I read in last Sundays LA Times, about Katherine and her “audition class”….

Around the time she moved to L.A., Heigl said, she took an audition class — where she learned that she rolled her eyes too much — but has never had any formal acting training.

You can read the entire article here.

A few schools that I am aware of where the faculty stresses knowing the business as important as building a foundation include Elon College, with Richard Gang and Fred Rubeck in the department. In addition, Howard University has one of the most progressive professors, Henrietta Edmonds.

Been way to long that I have not posted. Hope that it will be on a frequent basis now. Extraordinary actors and places that I have been seeing and meeting all over the world. Further posts I will share some interesting people and actorpreneur workshops that I have lead.

Arrived Wednesday night in Chicago, and had a wonderful dinner on Rush Street
at Carmines with Chicago’s respected casting director, David O’Connor.

David has been casting in Chicago for the past 17 years and runs his casting
office as a producer. Without question, the most successful casting director
between NY and Los Angeles. With so little TV and film production in Chicago,
O’Connor Casting is busy every day casting several commercials every day! Additionally
with his alliances with casting offices in NY and LA, he has been using video
conferencing to speed the casting process.

With additional staff that has just joined him, watch as he starts casting
network and film studio work for the wonderful talented actors in Chicago.

Actors are always asking when is the best time to seek new representation.

I certainly would not attempt to seek theatrical representation January through April (pilot season), UNLESS you had some sought of spike in your career, such as Grand Jury award for best performance at Sundance, though in that sought of situation agents will be seeking you out.

When is the best time then to seek representation? Any month excluding January through April and Thanksgiving to the end of the year.

For Commercial representation? anytime but stay away from Thanksgiving to the end of the year and 4 day weekends such as a July 4th, Memorial Day, Labor Day. There is a good chance that is when an agent may take off and your mailing will get stuck in the congestion.

Caught a 6:00m flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport today. Spending the day in Chicago, dinner with Chicago talent agents and watching the workshop that TVI - New York career coach Kristi Funk is presenting at TVI Chicago tonight.

Arriving from NY tonight are talent agents Peter Kaiser from Henderson/Hogan Talent Agency and John Shea from Frontier Booking International, Inc. (FBI). They will be meeting Chicago actors on Saturday and Sunday.

Actor Jonathan Nail of the blog “The Trained Actor” has a recent post, which hits the “Nail” on the head! “Straight to Producers”, a phrase that actors love to hear. The term is straightforward, you bypass the casting directors and go right to the decision maker, the producers.

I just ran into an entertaining blog by TVI Actors Studio member Vinnie Costa. Take a look, great links and great content. He is selling and promoting himself without even trying…very classy. Take a look here at his blog.