Audition Odyssey: How Two Actors Took Control of Their Budding Careers by Sending Letters Making Phone Calls and Hitting the Road

Bent, Eliza, American Theatre

THE CHALLENGE: So you wanna be an actor. Or maybe you already are an actor but you've yet to really jump-start your career. Or perhaps you're in a bit of a lull. Whatever the case, acting is a difficult vocation. Even obtaining an audition can prove elusive--if your theatre community is a small one, it may be hard to tap into a tightly woven network. If you live in a metropolis like New York or Chicago, there may seem to be no shortage of opportunities, but showing up to an Equity audition without your Equity card can be a dehumanizing, cattle-herding kind of experience. Bret Jaspers and Emily Clare Zempel were about to graduate from Brooklyn College in May '07 and their horizons as actors with MFAs seemed grim. Instead of entering the real world with high hopes of snagging auditions but with no real plan of action, the two thespians decided to turn the system on its head by creating auditions that did not pre-exist. They picked up and traveled to regional theatres instead of having the …

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Publication information: Article title: Audition Odyssey: How Two Actors Took Control of Their Budding Careers by Sending Letters Making Phone Calls and Hitting the Road. Contributors: Bent, Eliza - Author. Magazine title: American Theatre. Volume: 25. Issue: 8 Publication date: October 2008. Page number: 140+. © 1999 Theatre Communications Group. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale Group.

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