Weeks 15-16 It's a Wrap!

As you prepare your monologues and materials for the final, think about your journey in the course and all that you have accomplished. You all gave so much to one another in class. Reflect upon what you learned from the course and your fellow students. I hope that your final performance is everything

you want it to be. I expect them to be wonderful. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation so, prepare! Break a leg- NHP

Week 13-14- Got an agent?

Many of you have already identified and agent and have started to go out on professional auditions. Others have started to go out on local auditions on campus. If you have an agent, how do much are you engaged in your career? Do you check in with your agent once a week? Do you let them know when you have shows going on so that they can come and watch? Do you have a vision plan that you have shared with your representations? If not, you must. For those of you about to cross over to a professional agent, have you thought about these questions? What do you want your agent to do for you that you cannot do for yourself? What are you trying to achieve. Your agent will have a listening for what you can and want to do by sharing this information with him/her and then showing them that you are capable of achieving it. Make a list of what you would like to accomplish in the next three years as a performer. Once you have a vision plan, ask yourself how much of it depends on your agent? How much depends on you making it happen for yourself. You might be shocked at the results. In order to have a manager, you need to have something, even a vision plan, to manage...

Week 12- Taking Stock

This week we are at Midterm review. We have been practicing mock interviews with casting directors and bringing new monologues before the class. What have you learned about yourself during this process? Why should a casting director bet on you and take a risk by casting you for a project? Do you have everything that you promised on your

resume? As you sit on the other side and watch your peers, do you learn anything helpful about being in the room? What mistakes have you seen? What have you thought about that can help you be more successful in the audition process? Are your materials tight? Do they represent what you want to show to casting directors? If so, great. If not, time to buckle down and get to work.

Week 10-11 Feeling Lucky?

Over the past few weeks, you have been working to develop and/ or enhance your audition skills. You will now be called to use improvisation to help you access your tools to respond to the different demands and scenarios that you will face at auditions. Ask yourself, how much time to you dedicate each week to your craft? Are you reading periodicals about theater and performance? What opportunities have you created for yourself? Are you pleased with your tools? Identify a list of things you are confident about and things that you have to work on. Make a commitment to spend the next few weeks polishing your tools, setting small goals and putting an action plan into place to achieve what you want for yourself. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation? How lucky do you want to be?

Weeks 8-9 Casting Director Meetings and Call Backs

What do you prepare for a meeting with a casting director or director? What type of presentation of yourself have you developed that will leave a lasting impression? Do you have "something interesting" to say about yourself? Are you confident about your tools? Start to develop a working check list of the tools you have prepared for meetings. You should have this check-list prepared for every call you go on. Keep an audition notebook or digital file notes on your phone, this way, if you get called back to a casting director or director, you know just what you did to get you called back. This week, write what you feel you have prepared (and need to prepare) to feel confident about taking a meeting. Remember, each audition is a meeting with a potential employer. Be professional, energetic and easy to work with so that you can increase your odds of getting called back.

Week 7- Monologues and Reflections

Why do you choose the material you choose for monologues? What do you want to show the agent/casting director/director about your skill as an actor? Do you know that that your choice of material reflects certain things about you? Your job is to select material that showcases your strengths as a performer. The piece should be age appropriate, unaccented (unless specified by the agent/director/casting director) must have a recognizable character arc and range. Ask yourself how comfortable you feel with your audition material right now. What you put into developing your monologue will be what you get out of it. A sharp, well acted, thoughtful performance will give you a solid audition tool that you can use to get jobs. Turning in a bad monologue performance is like handing someone a sub-par resume with few qualifications for the job. It is a waste of your time and that of the agent/casting director/director that called you in. Shoot for the top 1% of candidates applying for the job. This requires work and dedication to excellence. There will always, always be exceptions to the good acting rule, but you can't bank on this. Ask yourself what you will do to identify, develop and polish your audition materials so that when opportunity knocks, you are not standing in front of mirror memorizing new lines, but preparing a thoughtful performance that has been rehearsed and developed into a shining example of your talent and training.

Week 6- Got Skills?

Over the past few weeks, we have auditioned across genres from television commercials to episodic TV shows and feature films. Through dramatic role play, we have been able to recreate typical scenarios that you may encounter as an actor auditioning for industry professionals. By auditioning twice a week, you are learning how to synthesize your technique so that you can quickly break down a script and play what the writer and/or director envisions. How do you feel your skills have strengthened over the past weeks? What have

you identified as your strengths and weaknesses? What would you like to improve to increase your opportunities for callbacks?