Industry Standards

What a week! The MA CCTs took in a heck of a lot of info in the past several days! As we are soon to be turned out into the world, the fantastic faculty arranged for us to meet with a myriad of industry personnel. Tuesday and Wednesday were dedicated to individual coaching sessions with actor John Kazek. We asked questions and performed auditions monologues for him and he gave us feedback and ideas for improvement and told us what to expect in some various audition room situations.

Thursday started out with Lorne Boswell from the Equity office. Equity is the trade union in the UK responsible for performers and other creative talent in the entertainment industry. They can be a great help when figuring out contracts and other legal issues and insure working conditions are fair and sensible. In addition, they offer various kinds of insurance a performer might need, job information, networking opportunities and much more. Mr. Boswell let us know what Equity does, its history and how we can join. Then we met Kahleen Crawford who is a casting director for film and television. She talked about what she does what she looks for and gave us tips on headshots, C.V.s (resumes) and ways to market ourselves. Amanda Howard a London based agent came in right behind Ms. Crawford and talked about an agent’s job and how to go about securing the services of one. Ms. Howard also gave us advice on our marketing materials. While we, the actors, were meeting with Ms. Howard the directors were off learning the ends and outs of running a theatre company with Matt Lenton, artistic director of Vanishing Point here in Glasgow. Some of us popped in to catch the end of that seminar when we were finished with Ms. Howard.

On Friday we started out the day with Maryam Hunwick an Edinburgh based agent to get her take and advice on things. She was followed up by another casting director, Anne Henderson who passed along more invaluable information. After lunch we visited with two RSAMD grads who are now working actors, Graeme Rooney and Paul Charlton. These two were hysterical and gave excellent advice and stories from the trenches with the actors’ point of view. I’ll take a moment now to plug Mr. Rooney’s and Mr. Charlton’s upcoming Fringe show. Check out their poster:



After those two fabulous fellows, the actors met with Matt Lenton of Vanishing Point and we continued our discussions about marketing material and audition preparation and etiquette. It was a very informative week. We are all armed with wonderful advice and tips. Now I’m off to revamp my C.V. (resume) and work on some monologues.

Coming up this week: more actors, directors and industry professionals will be coming our way!
Take care!
-m