What happened? Two years before “Tadpole,” Stanford was one of the shining lights at the Rutgers University actors’ showcase, which, along with many other academic showcases, traditionally takes place at the end of the spring semester in May or June. These days the Rutgers theater program is much more established, but back then it was still a relative backwater compared to the likes of NYU, Juilliard, Yale and other top schools that host their own actor showcases.
Even though Rutgers wasn’t one of the big boys in theater education, it still attracted enough agents and industry representatives to get the young Stanford in the buzz mill and eventually land him a starring role in a Sundance-bound film.
And just because you don’t attend Rutgers or any of the other schools that hold actor showcases for industry professionals, it doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of the agents’ favorite forum to see and sign new talent. This article will explore the ways of putting up one’s own showcase and doing it for a little less than, say, $600 or $700.
It’s All About the Agents
Agents, bless their hearts, work very long hours. They often work through lunch and constantly field calls from actors who want jobs, actors who want money and casting agents who want talent.
A major part of their job, yet the component that more often than not gets sidelined by the immediate concerns of a given day, is finding new talent. Sure, there are thousands of willing and able actors ready to be discovered, but there are rarely enough hours in the day to see them all and appropriately gauge their talent.
This is why the showcase was invented. It’s a format that is specifically designed to do nothing other than please the agent and other industry professionals. It’s a place where an agent (or, more likely, his/her assistant) can anonymously view an actor, get a feeling for him or her, and then immediately see the next one. It’s nothing more than a talent show, but it’s convenient and doesn’t (or shouldn’t) pretend to be anything other than what it is. At the end of the day it’s not very difficult to put up a showcase, and, if you abide by some pretty simple unspoken rules, agencies are quite willing to send representatives. All this can be done inexpensively, especially if there is a decent-sized group of actors to split the cost. And sometimes, like in the Aaron Stanford case, the returns can be quite rewarding.
How Do You Do It?
Even though space is going to be your biggest cost, the most important component of a showcase is the audience — can you attract enough of the “right people” to make the whole venture worthwhile? Will enough agent representatives be there to justify the cost and energy necessary to put up a big show?
Show Business called a list of medium-sized New York agents and asked them if they attended actors’ showcases. The answer was a unanimous yes, whether showcases are organized by an academic theater program or not. In essence, if done right, showcases are worth the time and effort.
When organizing a showcase, remember that everything you are putting together is for the benefit of the industry professional. Friends, family, acting peers and whoever else are all peripheral; they are there to fill up seats and make the agent feel more comfortable or more likely to laugh at the appropriate moments in the scene.
With that in mind, the first rule in getting the great audience is not to ruin the agent’s aforementioned willingness to show up. And the quickest way to blunder is to send a bad invite.
Invites
According to an agent’s assistant who didn’t want to be quoted for this article, agencies sometimes receive very cheesy post cards or flyers for a showcase. The invitation will be too aggressive (“come see the best actors in New York City!”) or sloppy and unprofessional.
That doesn’t mean you have to make a wedding invitation. It just means that the flyer should be simple, informative and professional so that the agent has a good idea what exactly she’ll be seeing at the showcase. Walking into a room of complete strangers who all have great high hopes for you is no easy matter after a long day at the office. If the professional feels there might be a surprise or two, she will probably not show up.
Getting the Right People
“Your entire evening should be very convenient for the industry,” said Sergio Cacciotti, founder of the now-defunct Pantheon Theater, which rented out space for showcases. According to Cacciotti, creating the right mood should be a crucial part of your organization.
The best way to make an agent comfortable from the outset is to get to know him or her beforehand. It makes all the difference in the world to the professional if he is coming to see someone he’s heard about, even if it’s a second cousin he’s never met or his college roommate’s kid brother.
When organizing the showcase, make sure your participants rack their brains for industry connections that may be worth calling. Often, young actors kind of know someone in the industry, but haven’t found a comfortable way to approach him or her for help in moving their careers forward. If done properly, showcases are a perfect way to ask those loose connections to come see you. It’s not going to be five acts of Shakespeare, and it’s very easy for them to come forward and help you afterward, or politely decline.
Remember, most industry professionals expect you to ask them for help and advice when they find out that you are an actor. Some, despite rumors to the contrary, actually want you to. So don’t be shy. Invite them to the showcase.
Space
The biggest expense is space. There is plenty of performing space in New York City, some of it very cheap to rent for a few hours. But to optimize your potential to attract agents, it is better not to rent out the black box theater on the Lower East Side for $200 dollars, but to ante up to $400 - $500 or so for a clean, cool theater somewhere in midtown, close to where agents actually work. While being in midtown can make a huge difference, there’s no need to rent out the fanciest place in town. When asked to name their favorite spaces for showcases, most agents were baffled by the question. They don’t really care as long as it’s clean and comfortable.
According to one agent, location is the number one deciding factor for attending non-academic showcases. “If the rehearsal is far on the Upper West Side, it’s just less likely that as many agents will show up,” he said.
When looking for a space to rent, limit your search to venues between 34th and 57th Streets. Agents and professionals are typically in the midtown or theater district vicinity when the workday ends. Who knows where they’re heading after that? For a list of available theaters, visit the Drama Bookshop, at 250 W. 40th St., and pick up a copy of The Space Book, a directory of off- and off-Broadway space rentals in New York City
Time
When you successfully find a space in midtown, the next concern is time. Sources say the show should start no later than 7pm. Agents want to go to the showcase before they go out to dinner, right after work. They don’t want to hang around the office or window shop for an hour waiting until 8 o'clock. Book your showcase for 6:30 or 7:00, and make sure it starts on time.
Length & Material
To further prevent sleep, the showcase should never last more than sixty minutes. Fifty minutes is ideal, say many professionals. Some actors might be perplexed by this. If there are more than five actors, how can fifty minutes do each performer justice? The reality is, a couple of minutes in a scene does the trick. If an impression isn’t made by then, an impression isn’t going to be made,
Most agents say quick scenes are the best format. And every actor should appear at least twice (within the fifty minutes) in different material — one appearance in a comic scene, the other in a more dramatic one.
Long scenes or one-act plays are a no-no. Showcase audiences want to get as much done in their fifty minutes as possible. The agent wants to see the largest sampling of talent possible. It is a needless challenge to find a one-act play that could give all the showcase actors their due.
Open a newspaper and you will find ads for showcases. Many take place in far off locales like Kansas City or Denver and are sketchy, moneymaking enterprises feeding off the innocence and naiveté of young dreamers in the heartland. These traps also appear from time to time in New York, but are more prevalent in Los Angeles. Actors will pay hundreds of dollars to appear in showcases that allegedly give participants an honest shot at getting signed. More often than not, the professionals in the audience are getting paid as well and have no genuine desire to sign any of the acts they see in front of them.
The best approach is to put up a showcase with friends, or at least actors you know or have worked with before. Everyone can pitch in their money, pay an accepted portion of the cost, and have an honest shot at impressing the audience.
The benefits of knowing your scene partners are obvious. First, if you have succeeded in attracting a valuable audience, you want to know with whom you’re working, both on stage and off. Knowing that the actor is capable and that the houselights aren’t going to suddenly blow out will give the performer much needed peace of mind. On that note, make sure your running crew is capable, friendly and patient.
If you know the people involved in the showcase’s organization, it’s much easier to put in your two cents. If there is a scene you really want to perform, it will be easier to find a scene partner who will be willing to do it with you. Like so much in theater, working symbiotically with the people around you can be much more productive and calming, than blindly caving in to a leader.
Material shouldn’t be that difficult to find. Again, agents just want to see how you work as an actor, so whether you choose a snappy scene from Neil LaBute or jazzy repartee from Neil Simon doesn’t make that much of a difference. Still, you should try not to do something that you know the audience has seen ten million times, which means, sad as it may be, you should probably avoid Shakespeare. Shakespeare won’t land you a role on next season’s “30 Rock.”
Since it’s usually been a long day for the agents, laughter will probably go a lot farther than drama. Make ‘em laugh if you know how to make ‘em laugh, but don’t try too hard if comedy isn’t your strength. Whatever you do, play to your strengths. This is your shot, so take it.
The vast majority of showcases won’t result in the stellar success now enjoyed by Aaron Stanford, but they are still a highly effective way to get you and your work seen by agents and other industry professionals. For many actors, especially those coming from high-profile theater programs, the showcase can feel a little degrading. The glorified talent show aspect of showcases isn’t particularly satisfying, and artistry often seems completely absent from the project. While that may at times be true, it’s just another reason to go ahead and organize a showcase yourself. At least then you will have control over the process of being seen — which is, after all, the goal of every actor.
