Neil Patrick Harris is Headed Back to Broadway in ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’

After hosting the Tony Awards, Neil Patrick Harris won’t be away from Broadway too long. It looks like as soon as he’s done with the last season of How I Met Your Mother, he’s headed back to New York to start in the Broadway premiere of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The musical, by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, will open in the spring of 2014.

The remaining creative team members, additional casting, and the theatre will be confirmed at a later date.

Neil Patrick Harris said, “I am simultaneously ecstatic and terrified to be stepping into Hedwig’s heels. It is truly a once-in-a-lifetime role and I can’t wait to begin the journey.” Read more

Can IMDb Pro Help Your Acting Career?

For all the ill will IMDb got during the recent lawsuit that accused the website of fostering ageism in Hollywood and the reveling personal details, it’s worth noting that The Los Angeles Times did a recent article about how IMDb Pro has helped actors profoundly in the past.

The prime example used in the article is Robert Pattinson, a virtual unknown before being cast in the starring role of the Twilight film series.  When looking to cast the part, Summit Entertainment’s casting directors browsed IMDb when Pattinson’s name came up and based on the information on there decided to contact him.  $3.3 billion dollars in box office money later, Pattinson is no longer an unknown. Read more

Review: ‘Man of Steel’

When ‘Seasons’ by Chris Cornell plays over a scene in the beginning of Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel, you know that we’re in the era of a new Superman.

An era where he’s not kinder or gentler. And that’s a good thing.

I did have some problems with the film overall but Man of Steel is a welcome start to what is hopefully a slew of DC Superhero films.

Man of Steel could almost be classified as a sci-fi film. It opens in a Krypton that we’ve never seen before. It has strange Kryptonian animals, spaceships flying around and odd penis-like pods that transport criminals to the Phantom Zone.

Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is imploring the council about what we already know, Krypton is a goner. The once noble General Zod (Michael Shannon) agrees, but instead of a peaceful way to help their citizens, he wants an all-out coup. He’s banished to the Phantom Zone… and he’s pissed.

You know the next part of the story. Kal-El is sent to Earth where he grows up to be…. Well, you know.

A good portion of the beginning deals with Clark’s childhood in Smallville and his time in Alaska where he’s trying to find himself. The Smallville bits with young Clark are a bit hokey at times and the mediocre dialogue doesn’t help it. Thankfully, it gets better as soon as he puts on the cape. Read more

Nathan Lane Says He’s Finished with Musicals: “Perhaps if some tremendous thing came along, but I would really think twice about it”

It’s hard to think of any actor who has been more associated with Broadway in the last twenty-five years than Nathan Lane.  The two-time Tony Award winner has rarely been off the New York stage during that time and he currently stars in The Nance, a play about a New York burlesque theater actor in the 1930s.  Though he is probably best known for musicals — especially The Producers, one of the biggest hits in Broadway history — Lane made a few surprising revelations to The Los Angeles Times about his future on the stage.

He admits that he sometimes feels typecast after his role in The Producers — not by casting agents, but by audiences.  He explains, “Everyone should have that kind of success in their lives, but there was a backlash.  They want you to continue doing what they just loved you in. When I did Butley after The Producers, people were shocked that I was using a British accent even though I had made my debut in an old [Noel] Coward play.”  He says that people who loved The Producers would even turn on it later, saying, “You’d hear, ‘Oh, it wasn’t that good.’ It was like they had awakened with a very expensive hooker and were ashamed that they had given away so much.” Read more

Michael Shannon on Why He Doesn’t Consider General Zod a Villain and If He’ll Ever Do Comedy

I’m no casting agent, but I have pegged Michael Shannon for a super-villain role for years.  Still, I never thought Shannon — who has never really appeared in any blockbuster — would ever be tapped to star in such a role.  However, people all over the world who have never seen the Oscar-nominated actor act will see Shannon star as General Zod in Man of Steel, and he spoke to The Los Angeles Times about the role and if he ever lightens up.

Though General Zod is clearly the supervillain of Man of Steel, Shannon insists that he doesn’t see his character as evil.  He explains, “I don’t consider him a bad guy. He’s a general just trying to do his job. Ask any general what their purpose in life is and it’s to defend whatever people they happened to be aligned with. He’s aligned with Krypton. It’s his mission, plain and simple.” Read more

The Business of Broadway: When “Star Casting” Doesn’t Work

Last week, I analyzed examples of the most successful examples of star casting on Broadway in recent years.  While those productions are on the top tier, other productions don’t fare as well – with some even closing early, which is usually considered a major embarrassment for the star in question in additional to the significant financial loses faced by the producers.

A recent example of a production that closed early is Orphans, which starred Alec Baldwin, which provides a microcosm of all the reasons why a production starring a famous actor can fail.  Baldwin caused a minor commotion when he largely blamed the early closing of Orphans on New York Times critic Ben Brantley’s negative review.  However, there are a myriad of other reasons that seem for more likely the cause of the early closure.  First, it seems that the bad publicity stemming from Shia LaBeouf and Baldwin’s public feud – which both actors fed in the media – had a negative impact on potential audiences (in his rant Baldwin blamed this also, but didn’t exactly take his share of the blame).  However, Baldwin’s $50,000 per week salary was more likely a major culprit considering that while Orphans sold well (an average of 82% capacity for its 64 performances), the average paid ticket price was $71.99, way below the top ticket price of $225.  That indicates that few premium seats were bought at face value, which significantly hurt the amount of money the production made.   Read more

Will Chase and Stephanie J. Block to Star in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ at Second Stage Theatre

Second Stage Theatre just announced that 2013 Tony Award nominees Stephanie J. Block and Will Chase will co-star in this fall’s production of the new musical comedy, Little Miss Sunshine. 

With book and direction by James Lapine and music and lyrics by William Finn, the musical will kick off Second Stage’s 35^th anniversary season on October 15th, with opening night set for mid-November. 

Block and Chase are both Tony nominees for this season’s revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  Read more

The Business of Broadway: When “Star Casting” Works

In the past few years it seems like a Hollywood star opens a play on Broadway on almost a monthly basis.  While this is a huge boost for Broadway and New York City – think of how many people traveled to Manhattan just to see Tom Hanks on stage in the last few weeks – the trend of “star casting” is controversial among Broadway regulars, many of whom see it as outsider stars jacking up ticket prices and “taking away” roles from legitimate Broadway actors for huge paychecks. 

In fact, because of stars’ salaries – actors like Tom Hanks and Al Pacino are paid upwards of $100,000 per week on Broadway – a detractor might question if spending all that money on a star is even worth it for producers when profit margins in the Broadway business are often razor thin.

Though star casting has a long history in New York (for example, Jackie Gleason did lengthy Broadway runs while he was a television superstar), I looked at the box office data from The Broadway League of select productions from the last five seasons (May 2008-May 2013) to see how effective star casting has been in recent years.  I looked at three primary figures: the total number of performances (including previews), the percentage of seats filled (capacity), and the average purchased ticket price.  The last figure is important because a star could be playing to 80% full houses and the production could still fail because the 20% unsold are the $200+ premium seats that need to sell to cover the star’s big salary. Read more

Acting Resume

How To Make An Acting Resume

An actor’s resume, along with an actor’s headshot, is your calling card. It’s there to not only show off your experience and past work but also your education and acting classes you’ve taken, physical stats and any other ‘special skills’ you might have.

Even if you have no experience, don’t worry. We all started somewhere and you can still have an acting resume that you can be proud to hand off to any casting director or agent.

Make your acting resume as professional as it can be and don’t try and jazz it up.

The Basics:

• You resume is always on one (1) sheet of paper.
• It must fit on the back of your 8×10 headshot. You’ll size up the resume to the back of your headshot, staple it in two opposite corners and cut the excess paper.
• Make it look clean with a lot of white space. It must be easy to read.
• Don’t try to cram every single role you’ve played since Elementary School on your resume. Did you do a production of The Wizard of Oz in High School and you’re now in your 30’s? Don’t add that.
• Don’t use any crazy fonts! Stick with Times New Roman or Arial.
• You can make the headings on your resume (Name, TV/Film/Theater section, Special Skills section) a different color than black but I wouldn’t choose more than one color.
• Never lie on your resume! Seriously, never ever lie because at some point you’re going to be caught. Whether you’re in Los Angeles, New York or Topeka, this is a small community and someone will find out. You don’t want to damage your reputation, especially if you are just starting out.
• You can choose to print your resume on the back of your headshot, but I wouldn’t. What if you just landed a part and you have 20 already printed headshots & resumes? You could write the new role in but that just looks sloppy.
• Do not put extra work on your resume.

Name, Contact Information, Physical Description, Union Affiliations (if any)

Take a look at the examples below:

Either of these will work fine.  

If you have an agent or someone who is representing you, you can also put their logo on the left side and put the phone number under the logo.

• Union affiiations. SAG-AFTRA or Equity/AEA. If you’re not a member of either, just keep that part blank. Some people put SAG-AFTRA Eligible if they are able to join the union. I’m not a big fan of that – either join or not.
• Contact information. List your contact information or agents/ managers. Don’t put your address on your resume.
• Personal Information. Your height, weight, hair and eye color. Never put your age on your resume unless you are under 18.
• If you want to do musical theater, you should also list your vocal type here. Example, Voice: Tenor

Acting Roles/Experience

In this section, you’ll list all of the acting parts you’ve had. You’ll group them by Theatre, Film and Television. If you have Web Series credits, you can make a section for that as well.

I have 3 different resumes depending on what I’m auditioning for. If I’m auditioning for a role in a play, I’ll bring my Theatre Resume. Same goes for a TV audition or Film Audition.

In each section, I list my most recent job first. Some list in order of their biggest role they’ve had and go from there. I prefer it chronologically – but either way, don’t ever add the dates you worked on those roles.

If you’ve done a bunch of work, don’t list everything you’ve ever been in. For example, if you’re in your 30′s don’t put the plays in High School you performed in.

Theatre:

For your Theatre section, you list the Name of the Show, followed by your Role, Theatre Company and Location of the Production.

You don’t have to add the director of the show unless they’re well known. If I did a show that Mike Nichols or Susan Stroman directed, you can bet I’d have that on my resume in big, bold letters. But normally, you wouldn’t add the Director.

Take a look at the examples below:

I personally use the 1st example but you can use either one.

Film, Television

For this section, you’ll list the Name of the Show or Film, followed by the Type of Role (not your character name), Network or Production Company and Director of the Show or Film. 

Don’t ever put extra work on your resume. Again, don’t ever put extra work on your resume.

Training and Education:

Next up is your Training. In this section, you’ll list all of the acting classes and workshops you’ve taken. If you went to college or took classes there, you’ll add them here.

You can see that I put graduation date. This is optional.

Special Skills

This is the last part of your acting resume and the only part where you could add a touch of humor. Don’t get too cute though, no one cares where you were born, what time and where.

Here, you’ll put down the accents you can do. Don’t have a huge list either. Something they can glance at. And only list things you can do at that moment. If you can’t do an Australian accent on the fly, don’t put it there. I’ll give you a good example: When I was finishing up my final audition for the film, Gods and Generals, Casting Director Joy Todd and Ron Maxwell, the Director, were looking at my resume. They didn’t think I was right for the role I had come in for but they saw that I did an Irish accent and asked if I could read a few lines. I did and got the part.

And there is your acting resume! Coming Soon – Click here if you need an acting resume template. A theatre resume template is there also.

Good luck and if you ever need help, feel free to contact me!

Looking for more acting information? Here are some great resources – More Coming soon

How To Become An Actor

Headshot Photographers – Including Los Angeles and New York

The Top 11 Reputable Casting Websites

Also, check out our Acting Advice Columns,  Interviews with Actors and our Actors on Acting category!

Jane Lynch Gives Broadway’s ‘Annie’ Box Office a Boost

The producers of Broadway’s Annie are enjoying a solid boost from Jane Lynch‘s limited engagement (and Broadway debut!) as Miss Hannigan. 

During the week Lynch’s casting was announced on February 20, Annie was selling at a very respectible 76% capacity according to The Broadway League.  However, attendance dipped to as low as 61% capacity — just over 8000 total per week — in the weeks prior to her arrival.  With Lynch attendance has risen to 79% (her first partial week of seven performances) and 88% (her first full week of eight performances), with the total weekly audience topping 10,000 both weeks.  In fact, last week’s attendance nearly topped 12,000 for the first time since the weeks before and after Easter (when thousands of children were on break from school). Read more

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