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July 8, 2007

The Actors Voice, 7/9/07

Hi Everyone!

Here's how this week's The Actors Voice starts out.

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The First Thing an Actor Should Do in LA

Over the course of the next few months, I'm going to be bringing some of the chapters from my first book--Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews--here to The Actors Voice. Why? Well, it's a sad time for Casting Qs. It's going out of print. Yup. We did a lot of research before deciding to not create a second edition of my first baby and came to the conclusion that the amount of work required to get its existing interviews updated--not to mention interviewing the new generation of working casting directors in order to really create as useful a book as we'd want the second edition to be--was simply not do-able for me anymore.

Why? Well, when I conducted the interviews for the first edition, I did so as the casting columnist for Back Stage West. It was my job to meet with a different CD each week and compile these interviews to run in the paper over the course of several years. I wasn't yet a casting director. I didn't have a busy calendar of speaking engagements. I hadn't authored several books. I wasn't producing showcases. To publish a book filled with CD interviews when I'd been collecting these columns each week wasn't a tough start-up, really. To update the existing interviews (some of which are as much as seven years old, now) and conduct new interviews, I would have to--for no pay--return to an interviewer lifestyle and stop casting, producing, and speaking, as well as ceasing to write this weekly column, The Actors Voice: POV, and my next book.

Frankly, going back to the interviewer lifestyle while leaving behind the very cool stuff I love doing every day just doesn't seem like much fun to me. I'd rather help get casting directors to share their thoughts with you as contributors of POV, as guests at my various speaking engagements, even as co-hosts of my various podcast and web-based TV projects that are currently in development. Am I sad that there will be no more Casting Qs for folks to buy in stores or browse at libraries? Yes. Very. I'm especially sad because it has become a required textbook at many colleges and universities, and that's the kind of thing that I know would've made my mother so very, very proud. And maybe there will be a time when I can take an unpaid three months off from everything else and go around collecting new interviews and publish a new version of Casting Qs. Until then, I'm going to do what I can to bring some of the content over here, to The Actors Voice, so you will be able to search out and read the information when you no longer have the option of getting the book.

Thank you all for indulging me! We're going to start out with a revamped version of The First Thing an Actor Should Do in LA--a chapter in which 15 casting directors originally participated, a few years back. I've added in content from other previous casting director interviews to really round this piece out. So, the eight key ingredients to success in this market are: Stay Focused, Be Prepared, Get Training, Have Great Headshots, Work a Survival Job, Do Theatre, Find Good Representation, and Network. Let's get to it!

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Continue reading this column, along with a Your Turn follow-up on last week's piece at Showfax.com.

As always, THANK YOU for reading!

Cheers,
-Bon.
Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will.

Posted by bonnie at July 8, 2007 10:37 PM

Comments

Posted by: Mary Carlisle at July 9, 2007 7:28 AM

Posted by: Jamie at July 9, 2007 10:02 AM