Actor & The Business

The Actor & The Business Free Webinar

2/22/2015

Listen to the FREE Actor & The Business Webinar and post your questions in the comments. Sign up HERE and we'll send you the FREE Video Series: The Actor & The Business

11 Comments

Shemeka Foster

1/25/2015 07:44:35 am

First I want to say everything that you said on that webinar about the universe responding accordingly is very true. I truly appreciated your honesty and candor about the industry.

1. My question comes from being called in to auditions especially film and TV because my teacher recommended me for a role on Primetime TV and I. I wasn't ready. Is it okay to approach that casting director later with a reel and say "hey,look at me now"? and how do I maintain that relationship with my teacher?

2. You mentioned a theater monologue does not work for film /tv as a reel. So did you mean use a monologue from a TV show b.c I got confused when you said prepare the monologue like it's not a monologue.

2. Do you have any names of playwrights that might spark the same flame as Katori Hall?

Please do your weekend intensive classes you used to offer last year. I hate that I didn't take advantage of those classes. :) I have only been acting for two years and after researching you I realized you were the real deal lol. I haven't taken a lot of classes but a weekend intensive in Spring lol...I'll b there lol....

Thank you again for sharing that invaluable information. I'm going to apply it to my first agent meeting next month :). I have a lot of work to do but like you said I can do it.

Apri

1/25/2015 08:43:47 am

Hi Shemeka:

RE: your question: You mentioned a theater monologue does not work for film /tv as a reel. So did you mean use a monologue from a TV show b.c I got confused when you said prepare the monologue like it's not a monologue.

I mean, use a TV/Film monologue and make sure you get a really good coach to walk you through the work. TV/Film writing is very different, shorter monologues that are more about the deep hidden feelings of the character. They say a lot using few words. Theatre writing is about the language and the playwright's ability to make beautiful. Every thing is far more literal in the text and it's a lot of poetic language that the camera is not able to tap into easily.

Once you've found material and gotten coached, then you need a really good camera/Director of Photography person to put the reel on tape. I'm great at coaching on camera and recommending material, so you can email me if you're interested.

In terms of shooting the reel, I like Roz Coleman at Red Wall Productions and Brent G. Katz. Both of whom have done my reels in the past which you see Roz' work on my website: AprilYvetteThompson.com and Brent's reel on my IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1690743/

Re: your question: Do you have any names of playwrights that might spark the same flame as Katori Hall?

Without having any idea about your specific emotional type, it's hard to recommend writers. I believe artists do themselves a great disservice when they limit the scope of the roles they can play by choosing material that reflects one small aspect of the personality and fits their racial type. If you do that, you'll be playing the same ghetto mothers, angry or golddigging ingenues which is really mostly what's getting produced on film/tv/theatre. Not that those aren't good roles, but your life experience while being defined by the color of your skin, class and gender are important, they are not the full scope your specific story. But the industry will keep us there as they do with most actors who you notice only play themselves or the same role over and over again: Denzel, Sam J, Nicole Kidman, Kevin Costner. They are stuck in the same trap.

Choosing material to audition with is the one place where you have power over your career, so don't limit yourself. Take a look at this video about figuring out how to match your emotional type with your physical type...it will open doors for the kinds of material you'll start looking for...once you widen the definition, you'll work for the rest of your life.

http://www.thedreamunlocked.com/blog/a-love-letter-to-my-fellow-artists

Thank you for your praise of my classes. I've moved my classes to online to make room for my writing/acting/producing career (so I can create more and deeper roles for you folks like you) and so I can focus my teaching on private coaching which is where I find the most satisfaction. Clients who have decided to move their careers forward in dramatic ways are ready for private coaching and the results are breathtaking. I have a couple of clients who have just finished their first independent films that they produced, wrote and starred in and 5 more who are touring their solo shows. Those are the kinds of students, I'm excited about taking on a ride. So, that's why my focus has shifted from those large in person classes. But I have put most of my classes on tape or recordings, so stay tuned for those releases coming up in the next few weeks. All is not lost, you can get my next video series which is smoking hot! xoxox

xoxoAYT

April Yvette Thompson link

1/25/2015 07:45:28 am

Hi Shemeka:

So glad you loved the webinar. So few teachers were real with me, not because they didn't want to be, they simply weren't working in the industry anymore. That's why I act, write, produce and teach. I'm glad you found the webinar useful. I felt like I bombed because nobody had anything to say...ha! lol.

You can always come back around with a great reel after a lackluster audition. This is a learning curve, this acting business and people realize that actors are young (which is when most of the work is available), but are still growing into their training. It won't hurt you and as a matter of fact, it will endear you in their eyes for being brave enough to stick to it and come back with something better.

I bombed with Seret Scott in my first reading...and when I say bombed. Frozen, no words came out of my mouth. This happened in two different workshops a year apart. Can you imagine, that woman didn't even want to look at me. I got her address from a fellow actor and for two years I sent her my monthly updates on my career. Readings, reviews, a new headshot/resume whenever I updated it. It took 5 years. But one day she responded to one of my letters. Did I mention I was sending her a presskit basically 4 times a year. One day she responded by leaving a message at the front desk of the theatre where I was performing. She said, yes, she'd like to see my show. She came. Stood outside in the rain. I was terrified. She said, "You were alright, kiddo." And then she walked away. 6 months later she cast me as Ruth in A Raisin in the Sun when no one would see me for the role because I was too young. Then she cast me as the lead in the her play which was premiering at passage theatre. She said, that she had watched me grow up and she couldn't trust her autobiographical story anyone else's hands.

So stick to it...people adore and respect tenacity. It also will make you a better actor.

Stay tuned for a new video or podcast this Monday or Tuesday where I'll answer the rest of your questions.

I don't teach those workshops because most of my time when I'm not writing, producing or acting, I work primarily with private clients who are dead-up serious because they're me a lot of money to help them make things happen. Working with folks who have made their first short film or wrote their solo show and got it produced is the most fulfilling work for me because those are artists who've decided they will do this work by any means necessary. That's my focus these days...

xoxoAYT

J.D. Williams

1/25/2015 08:26:37 am

Thanks,there's some interesting stuff in there...

April Yvette Thompson link

1/25/2015 08:27:31 am

Thank you, I'm so glad! xoxoxo

Jas Anderson

1/25/2015 08:28:28 am

Wow truly a blessing all you have said and especially at this point in time in my life with all I have going on. You answered everything I was questioning. Thanks for sharing. Wow. So many blessings some many ways GOD is working in my life showing me I'm right where I need to be. I just booked guest star role ok law n order and it's only the beginning. Auditions are coming in. I still do want to find better reps now with a good body of work already under my belt, a new reel, new epk., amd updated reel how shld i go about looking?

April Yvette Thompson link

1/25/2015 08:56:38 am

Thanks, Jas:

So happy I could provide some insight. I think pulling your press kit together in hard copy form as well as on line is the place to start so you roll in looking like a professional. The next piece is good old-fashioned research. Google agencies in NYC and ask actors with great careers their feelings about your agency list. Once you've narrowed the search down to 5-10 agencies, time to research their clients lists. All agencies have to provide a list to anyone they might sign. You want good reviews from fellow actors about the agency (preferably people who business saavy who go out for the right things consistently) and then you need to make sure they don't have a too many folks in your type (both your emotional and your physical type. As I mentioned in the response above to Shemeka's questions, actors of color do themselves a disservice when they sell themselves exclusively as black person #4 ages 23-28. That's not the sum of who you are and if you sell yourself to agents that way, you'll see the limitations of that strategy when you find yourself going out for the same thing day after day. Take a look at this video and start thinking out side the box.

Stay tuned for Michelle Hartley's artist spotlight of how she used this strategy to get signed by new managers and agents in the next newsletter.

Good luck and God's speed!

xoxoApril

Michelle Hartley

1/25/2015 09:02:19 am

Hey April!

Since buying the How to Double your auditions webinar and my coaching package with you, I've signed with Prestige Management & I also still have my agent (whom I had a chat with re type per our convesation & he miraculously sent me out 2x this week (smh).

Here's the point, during my mgt. meeting, I brought up the casting me against type subject....BOOM!!! They signed me. I'm still in shock! I've been looking for a manager...like forever!!!! THANK YOU!!!! During our next session, can we put together a pitch for my mgr. & agent??? They're asking for one from me & I want to grind really, really hard in 2015. Then, the next session we can do the hair / makeup deal?? Girl, you're brilliant!!!

oxo Michelle Hartley

April Yvette Thompson link

1/25/2015 09:11:24 am

Michelle!

That's amazing! You know stuff like that happens very rarely and only when you've created a career that can hold that kind of success. That's what happens when you decide to get serious about career movement and take action. I just gave you some tools, you put them to work! Sooo very proud and happy for you!

xoxApril

Virjette La Cour

1/25/2015 09:20:23 am

"Went [to April's Actor & the Business webinar}. It is the most valuable FREE lessons ever!!!! She is also on youtube with free advice. Almost too good to be true!!"

April Yvette Thompson link

1/25/2015 09:21:09 am

Thank you so much Virjette! Glad to be of service...

xoxoApril

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""""One of the most mortifying moments I experienced in my theatrical career was when I was asked to bring the entirely African-American cast of a new musical we were workshopping, a new piece by an African-American librettist and composer, across the street to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and up into the plush boardroom so they could perform a song or two for the board of directors. I wanted to say something, but I didn't. For one thing, it would take an invaluable 45 minutes to an hour out of the creative team's limited time together. But... every year we had to do the same old song and dance for the board to remind them that yes, we did do new plays and musicals, so yes, it was sometimes a good idea to expose the board to new voices, to the vibrancy of an exciting work in progress.

You all know where this is going, don't you? I led the team in. The talent in that team! The writer/composer himself and the cast, lauded veterans of the stage and the most promising members of the next generation of acting giants. And there was our board. White, as white as can be, white white white white. And very comfortable. They'd just been served lunch, I believe. My theater spared no expense in pleasing our board and catering to their demands (oh my god, I'm feeling such rage right now! I'm pretty sure we had a staff member who was mostly dedicated to help our richest board members get house seats to shows on Broadway and the West End. But I digress...)

The only black face in the audience seated at the conference table? The only person of color? The head of our education department, of course. My heart went out to her.

The cast sang a song from the show. They did it. And they brought it. Because they were and are professionals. And the very pillars of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion reverberated down to the parking lot. It was breathtaking.

And I had just been complicit in the remaking of a scene for the millionth time: black bodies and voices entertaining white audiences, an institution raising money on the backs and voices of black bodies.

I was too mortified to apologize to our writer and to our cast, none of whom, I should add, expressed even an iota of discomfort. They were professionals, and they shone. And come to think of it, they'd probably all become accustomed to this scene. "It's just how theater works," they might have thought with a shrug of their shoulders. Or maybe they seethed inside, for the millionth time, when all they were trying to do is workshop a new musical.

Well, I apologize sincerely now to our writer and those actors. I wish I had had the courage to put my foot down. It is not how theater should work.

I quit the American theater on Valentine's Day 2016, so I've been out more than four years now. And honestly I don't plan to return, which is why I can write with such candor.

The heart of the problem, my friends, is with the non-profit structure, which is capitalism on steroids. Who are the bosses ultimately in an American institutional theater? The board of directors. Who are the board of directors? For the most part, those members of the community not with the strongest attachment to the art form but those with the deepest pockets. Often they're really not members of the community. They often just drop in. They are sometimes mere tourists.

It's no wonder that that board meeting was held in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The theater, like most American theaters, had built its board of directors on the old opera model: You get the richest folks together, offer them galas and house seats and receptions and private recitals and showings (for which artists often don't get paid extra, mind you), you pamper them and make them feel more special and entitled than they already do, and then they'll write you big checks to support the kind of art they like, the kind of art they can bring their kids and grandkids to. AND they--not the artists, not the community--get to hire the institution's leadership.

It is a rotten model. Rotten to the core. How can any artistic institution claim to be working for and in the community with that model?

It's got to be torn down. It's got to be reinvented. And I have no idea what the next model will be. I really don't. And no, honestly I don't think government is the solution frankly. Some of the most bloated, self-satisfied, decadent theater I've ever seen was in Germany, where it was almost fully government-funded. Lots of bells and whistles and provocations and completely soul-dead.

I see amazing and galvanizing lists of demands recently being made and posted by theater artists of color. These are vital demands. But they don't address the central issue. As long as the ultimate bosses of an artistic institution remain the community's deepest pockets, nothing will change. Nothing. You'll be putting band-aids on a gaping wound. Sorry, but it's true.

So please figure something else out. Maybe for a few years you just avoid the institutions. You've already started. In the pandemic, so many of you are making amazing art without an institution. Find those who truly adore your work and ask them to fund it. Screw non-profit. Form a corporation and value your art art-making as a resource that profits you, your viewers/audience and your community. I have no idea.

But please don't return to a new version of the old. After the virus, after he's out of office, after police reform and nationwide conversations about race, after, after, after, begin something new. I can't wait to see what it is!”
Words: Pier Carlo Talenti
Video: Griffin Matthews

April Yvette Thompson
is a Tony-winning
producer,
writer
& actor
working
across media.

FOUNDER/CEO of TheDreamUnLocked: Boutique Coaching for Actors, Writers & Dreamers⁣⁣
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The DreamingOutLoud Technique from April's Ted Talk: ReWrite Your Story, is the basis of her teaching method⁣⁣
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. • Writing is the way to focus ourselves in the present, on what's working & figuring out new ways to get around old problems⁣⁣

⁣⁣ •Writing is a way to align the life ur living w/the life uv always dreamed about⁣⁣
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• Writing is also how u let go of the BS beliefs u have about what ur capable of.⁣⁣ The DreamingOutLoud Technique allows ⁣⁣u to grieve the losses, forgive urself for past mistakes & weave a new story of how ud like to spend the rest of ur life thriving instead of just surviving.⁣⁣
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The DreamingOutLoud Technique uses writing exercises, a rigorous questioning process & dismantling of all the limiting beliefs u hold that no longer serve u⁣⁣
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Like Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction & transformation, I help u root out the dead weight so that u can focus on flying. ⁣⁣
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How to get⁣⁣
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to F🌀CK THIS ⁣⁣
F🌀CK THIS is that place where even though you're broke & nothing is working & you're afraid of complete failure, you finally decide:⁣⁣
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TheDreamingOutLoud Technique is what happens next after F🌀CK THIS
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by RE-IMAGINING ⁣⁣POOR beginnings
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I’ve created a process where u can learn how to change the very fabric of your life. This magic is available to everyone⁣⁣
It's called ReWriteYourStory, the fuel that drives the DreamingOutLoud Technique

TheDreamUnLocked.com
AprilYvetteThompson.com

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