Who am I anyway...

Dom is relatively new to the city having been here about 6 years or so. Three of those years were spent doing cruise ships. We were chatting one day about the Business and the subject of headshots and resumes came up. We did an exchange and perused each other’s CVs. He had a glossy black and white 8x10 (more on headshots in a later blog) and a resume that used “funny” lines and show quotes instead of traditional headings for each section.

 I told him straight away, “You have to change this”.

 His response was “Why? It’s funny.”

Stan I went through the same university program, although at different times. He’s been in the city for some time now. When he returned from doing a cruise ship I saw him at an audition. We spent our “waiting time” catching up and swapping stories.

Both Dom and Stan are the same type. They’re both older, larger guys. They’re funny, talented and quick witted. These two guys are so much alike that they were hired for the same position for the same cruise line on different ships. Coincidentally Stan and Dom had the same type of “resume”. They both thought the quotes and jokes were inventive and showed that they were funny.

Their resume showed that they were funny. More importantly, it was showing the people behind the table that they weren’t taking themselves seriously as businessmen.

 The resume is a physical representation of past employment used for the opportunity of getting future employment.

A resume should be designed like advertisements in any other business. It should be easy to read, clean and visually uncluttered. It should contain all the necessary information to get you in the door if you’re submitting for a project. If at an audition, your resume should give a snippet of your professional life. There is no room for jokes or stories or other extraneous information. If the people behind the table must read something while you’re in the room giving your product pitch (audition)  it should be credits or training or who you’ve work with and where.

And that is exactly what should be on a resume: shows, roles, places and staff, along with contact information, education and special skills.

If you’re a member of Actors Equity (or any other performing union), the name you list on your resume should be the name that is on file for you at that union’s office. If you’re not yet union it can be any name you want to be known as professionally. This name should be the largest thing on the 8x10 piece of paper, however not so big that you come off as an egomaniacal diva.

And yes both the resume and photo should be sized 8 inches by 10 inches. If it’s a different size it’s something other than a Show Business resume.

The second important thing on your resume is your contact information. I say second because if you’re a member of a union and someone wants to cast you, your information can be obtained through that union (hence the reason you use your union name). This information should be second in size only to your name.

Contact information can include any or all of the following: cell number, email address, website, a manager’s number, an agent’s number. I personally believe that if an actor has all of these ways to be contacted, all of those ways should be on the resume. There are plenty of agents and managers who tell their clients to only list the agency or office number as contact information. Generally speaking if you’re signed with an agent or manager you should format your resume exactly the way they want and put any damn thing on it they want. This, however, is the one exception.

There should always be at least two ways to get in touch with an actor listed on a resume.

 A potential employer wants to hire you. He or she has an old resume, and listed on it is only the information from your previous agent/manager. Your previous agent/manager no longer works at that agency/office. The others in the office have no idea how to contact you or even who you are. You lose employment and lose money. The point of being in Business is to be employed and to make money.

This scenario happens more often than one think. Maybe an actor weren’t castable in the show they were auditioning for, but the people behind the table liked him/her and actually kept their picture and resume. Another project comes up that this actor is right for and those same people behind the table want to contact him/her. I’ve been called with a job offer as late as three years after an audition.

An actor must be easily accessible to potential employers. However since there is no way to know where the resume will end up or who besides potential employers has access to it, never list your home address or your social security number. That information can be given out after you’ve book the job and contracts need to be sent and signed.

Two other pieces of information on resumes that should be avoided have to deal with age and voice.

The nanosecond an actor steps into the room the people behind the table have made assumptions about his or her age. The assumptions are based on the physical appearance of the actor coupled with the life experiences of the people behind the table. If the age or age range listed on the resume is contrary to what they perceive the actor as being, his or her product is no longer in line with the ideas of the people behind the table. As a result castability lessens. Keep your options open. Never list any dates or years of productions or length of study. Always allow the people behind the table put you into an age category they feel is appropriate.

The moment any sound comes out of an actor’s mouth whether it’s a simple hello or the first notes of a song, a seed has been planted in the minds of the people behind the table as to what that person’s voice type is. The people behind the table have their jobs on the line. They are skittish and shy away from most things that cause confusion. Listing your voice type as “coloratura soprano who belts” can cause confusion and as a result lessen castability. Don’t show it, live it. Find or arrange one song that utilizes your unique vocal aspects.

Other things to avoid listing on a resume are:

            Secondary pictures, unless it’s a radical non-costumed change in

            appearance

            Reviews and newspaper blurbs

  Scholarships

  Awards and nominations (if you’ve won a major award, like a

  Drama Desk or Tony, the people behind the table know it)

           

Do list personal information on a resume. Now that color photos are de rigueur there is really no need to list hair and eye color, but height and weight should be listed. There are agencies who say to leave all of this descriptive personal information off a resume. These agencies hope that the actor will be called in for audition regardless of that auditions requirements.  It’s called “mental reservation”, which means a person is not telling a lie but isn’t offering the whole truth either.

Teagan is 5’7 ¾” tall. He lists himself in his personal information as 5’8”. That’s perfectly acceptable. But Teagan realizes that if height is a requirement for a role or show he may be measured. Some auditions do have the “you have to be at least this tall to ride this ride” tape measure posted on the door jamb. If you don’t meet the requirements don’t waste your time or theirs. The reality is no matter how talented you are “if you don’t fit the costume you aint gettin’ hired”.

I choose to keep all of my personal information purely for aesthetic and formatting reasons.

And the dreaded special skills…

“Special skills” is a section on your resume where you can list things that you do that may be of use in a show. That's all I’m going to say. It’s completely subjective as to what’s put there. If you feel that farting the alphabet in Chinese on cue will get you a production contract then go right ahead and list “Can fart the Chinese alphabet on cue” in your special skills section. Remember, however, this is a Business resume. Would an accomplished Accountant who lists on his resume “makes a perfect chocolate soufflé” be seriously considered to be the CFO of Bank of America?

Paul Russell is a Casting Director and author. In his book “Acting: Make it Your Business”, he has a page-long list of things to avoid putting under this section. He also talks of a special file he keeps of resumes with things like “can fart the Chinese alphabet on cue”.

The bulk of a resume is the “experience”; what shows, what roles, at what theatres you’ve worked and with whom. Some believe the previous employment should be listed in descending chronological order. Others believe the most prestigious accomplishments should be listed first. In the perfect world the most prestigious roles/shows would be the most recent. Still some think their favorite roles/show should be first. How you arrange yours is another judgment call.

Some actors list every director, musical director and choreographer they’ve worked with; some list only the major well known names. Some don’t list any. When listing a name on your resume you link that person’s reputation with your own. Theatre is a Business. And it’s a business of egos…egos that bruise easily and recover slowly. A name on a resume can start a dialogue with the people behind the table, favorably tip the balance of the audition, or completely put you out of the running.

Director X got hired for a production over Director T. I was hired to work with Director X on that production. Afterward I listed the production and Director X on my well put together over stuffed resume. I auditioned for Director T, who while reading my resume came across that production and Director X. After the audition during my “waiting time” someone pointed out a rivalry between Director X whom I listed on my resume and Director T who was in the room. Director T, it’s speculated, will not work with people who have previously worked with Director X. So there is a real possibility that I wasn’t seriously considered because of my prior working with Director X. It depends on the relationship and the maturity and professionalism of both the people you audition for and the people you list on your resume.

Like many performers I believed “more is more” and “more is better”. I would look at other people’s resumes and wondered how they seemed to fit all that information on a single 8x10 piece of paper. I was suffering from “resume envy”.  

I bulked up my experience by keeping all of my major accomplishments, my recent productions and my favorite roles and shows listed on my resume. I sacrificed design, aesthetic and readability to show the people behind that table that I was capable of doing their piece because all those other people behind all those other tables had hired me. There in lay the problem with my resume. Like Dom and Stan and the “belting coloratura Soprano”, I was relying on showing it on paper instead of relying on living it in the audition (that’s another topic for blogging).

I realized I was too close to the situation. I needed an outside impartial pair of eyes. I called a good friend and colleague of mine for help through a painful resume redux.

Lisa and I grew up five houses away from each other. She is an accomplished and awarded actress. I told her about my resume and how I felt something wasn’t working. After perusing it she was brutal in her assessment. She first instructed me to get rid of all past accomplishments. She set a date and said “anything before this date is irrelevant. Take it off your resume”.

Lisa also instructed me to get rid of the names on my resume saying “It’s your resume not theirs. You don’t need to list their accomplishments”. In the end, listing names is a judgment call. For her, because of where she is in her career, it’s completely acceptable to not list names; everyone knows who works on the vast majority of her projects. The rules do slightly alter as you climb the Show Business ladder.

I came up with a compromise for where I am in my career.

On my resume I list the names of directors, choreographers and musical directors who are well known and work on the same level (and higher) that I am currently working. The names change slightly depending on who is behind the table at the audition and who is on the production team. If I’ve worked with someone and I’m auditioning for him/her again, you can bet your bottom dollar that his/her name will be on my resume when I’m in front of their table.

Then came the hardest piece of resume advice Lisa had to offer: If a role isn’t relevant to who you are today, what your product is right now, it has to be taken off your resume. No questions. It hurt to edit some of those roles off because they mean so much to me as a performer and as a person. I had to re-learn, and it bears repeating, that a resume is a physical representation of past employment used for the possibility of getting future employment. That’s all a resume is. It’s not a contest entry to see who’s done more. And it’s not a validation of your talent.

The last piece of a resume is your training. For anyone who is just starting in the Business, this section is the most important one of all. If you’ve just graduated from school list your experience honestly. No one expects you to have Broadway or First National Tour credits. If you did a show at a University, list it as a university show. If the show was at Niagara Falls Little Theater list it as such. If the people behind the table are interested in you and the possibility of hiring you, they will ask questions to become better acquainted with you and your abilities.

The people behind the table generally like to know that actors new to the professional world of Show Business have had instruction, in which areas and by whom. In the Training section name all the major teachers who’ve taught you. If you’ve graduated from a University and have a relevant degree this is the place to list it. (Although at some chronological age this degree becomes a mute point unless it’s from certain schools: Yale, CCM, Carnegie Mellon, Julliard and the like.) Perhaps the people behind the table are familiar with the program from which you graduated, as there are plenty of reputable and amazing programs outside of the biggies. Or perhaps they may know of a teacher you’ve studied with, having worked or studied with him or her themselves. All of this helps the novice professional performer establish credibility.

Once all this information has been gathered in one place, it has to be arranged in a clean easily readable font. The font size, italics, boldness, capitalization, section headings,  two columns, three columns or four, use of production staff names, order in which credits are listed, whether those credits are broken down into subsections or just listed under one heading, which teachers and or schooling to list is completely based on personal design preference. In making your resume choices remember show business is a Business first and foremost.

Dom doesn’t understand the business aspect of Theatre. He listened to my opinion about his resume but keeps using it. He feels he’s made the right choice because one casting director at one “pay to play” seminar liked it.

Stan took a seminar as well, Paul Russell’s. Stan was floored about how much it had changed his perspective on Theatre and the Business of Show. He has since completely overhauled his resume.