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And Justice For All?

   It has taken me a long while to sit down and write this blog.  After George Floyds murder a long overdue wave took over our country.  We were all forced to take a look at ourselves and our institutions.  At first I was a bit frustrated.  See, I had read all the books and knew most of the history.  I read James Baldwin, Angela Davis, James McBride, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and many others.  My closest friends were black.  I have nephews and nieces, both Black and Latinix.  But I am a middle aged white man, so I am the villain.  Why me?  Then I started doing a bit of soul searching.  I am the villain.  I started examining what I had failed to do on my journey.  How had I perpetrated the alienation so many of the people I know were feeling.  We all had to look inward and examine our actions or better yet, our lack of action.  Did I fall in line and follow the herd?   I represent people for a living.  How can I represent actors of color in the way they are meant to be represe
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Acting in the Time of Covid

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      Oh how I wish I had the answers.  The questions come at a fast a furious pace. Everyone I know is getting them and everyone I know is asking them. "When will the work come back?"  "What will the set look like?"  "How do i get my carrier going during Covid?"  All are viable and important questions and if anyone tells you they have the answers, they are lying.     I was one of the early believers that we would be back to work sooner rather than later.  I thought the government would figure out that the economic consequences were going to be devastating and putting people back to work would become  imperative.  I was quickly proved wrong.  Now we sit and we wait.  Enough work trickles in to keep our appetite whetted, and our reduced staff ends up doing a whole lot more work on fewer jobs because of the new normal.  Each small job requires an endless number of emails.  Reminder emails to clients to get their self tapes done.  Answer a ton of questions on
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All The World's A Stage

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  My agency is rare in the fact that we have, in our Los Angeles office, a stand alone Equity division.  There are less then ten of us in LA with this kind of commitment to theater.  All of our bigger competitors will do theater if it's a big show like Hamilton or one of the large legit theaters in town like the Taper or the Geffen.  Unlike those ten percenteries, we have five people on the ground in Los Angeles servicing an elite group of the best stage actors in Los Angeles.  We are working on Broadway, national tours, regional theater and, of course, local theater here in Los Angeles. There is a big lie out there that you can't make your living as a theater actor and live in Los Angeles at the same time.  I am here to tell you that that is just not true.  The actors in our Equity division made over a million and and a half dollars last year and they are on record to make two million this year.  We are constantly preaching to the young actors coming out of conservatory prog
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So You're Saying There's a Chance?

Episodic season is upon us and it is really the best chance you have as a work a day actor to getting in the room and advancing your career.  Unlike the myth of pilot season, which I addressed in a previous post, episodic season is ripe with opportunities.  Here casting is more willing to take chances.  The stakes aren't quiet as high.  They have time to pre-read you or look at your reel.  Casting isn't looking for someone who can carry a series on their shoulders, but someone who can service the story.  Don;t get me wrong, you will still be competing against actors with tons of credits, but at least you can get in the room.  You should especially concentrate on long running shows.  Shows that have been on for many seasons have used up the pool of multi credited actors.  They want to bring their producers new faces.  After multiple seasons show runners get bored by the same actors.  Fresh new faces, who can act, are a gift to casting. There are so many outlets now and so many
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Social Media...Neither Social nor Media

How important is your social media in the new landscape of show business?  Your social media numbers can be the difference in the hiring process, but so many actors get is so wrong.  Back in the days when I had to walk to school 10 miles uphill in the snow, both ways, we had a thing called a Q rating.  Every actor of any recognizability had a Q rating.  This was derived by giving a stranger , in a mall, a big notebook full of pictures and seeing who they recognized.  The most recognizable had the highest Q rating.  Highly scientific. Now one of the first questions we get is, "What are their social media numbers?"  The real question they should be asking is,"How engaged is their following?"  This is really what you should be working on.  Build the number, but get your followers engaged.  I have 15,000 followers on Twitter (@commeagent) and only a tenth of them are really engaged, maybe not even that many. Really look at your social channels and make sure they are
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Mutual R-E-S-P-E-C-T

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We had an actor call our office today about an audition they heard about and had not gotten an appointment for.  This actor asked us why she hadn't been submitted for this project, why the agent hadn't had a conversation about her.  I always find this approach so counter productive.  Here's a big news flash for actors, we don't make any money by NOT submitting you.  Maybe I should have given this actor the casting directors phone number and said,"Why don't you call them and ask why they didn't see you."  Would the actor have had the same aggressive behavior with casting?  Would they assume the casting director wasn't doing their job? Perhaps we can all agree that we are professionals and we are all doing our part of the job.  We generate the auditions and the actors go into the room and audition. Castings role is to take the director or producer's vision and bring in the best actors for the roles.  I get being frustrated.  I get frustrated
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The Myth of Pilot Season

January is upon us and now begins the mad dash to April.  This is the time affectionately known as "Pilot Season".  I use the quotes here because the basic truth is that pilot season is a Brigadoon for most actors, a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every hundred years. Eighty percent of the actors in this town will never experience a real pilot season and most are not prepared to.  I know this is harsh.  I often ask groups of actors at the seminars I give, if they are really ready to carry a pilot and thereafter a series.  Do you really know what that entails and the incredible pressure that is on you when you are number one on the call sheet? It isn't just about playing your part and doing the best you can.  Very often you will be on every page of the script, every week.  You will have wardrobe fittings, makeup tests, photo shoots, interviews, ADR and still carry the show on set and lead a cast and crew who are counting on the success of this
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