AboutPeter Messaline Expertise This is the place for Canadian answers! My company runs "The Advisors",
a Toronto-based career-power network for performers, producers and entertainment artists of all sorts.
I am a performer, and I have not had a joe-job in the last thirty-odd years, so I must be doing something right.
I can talk about career moves, self-promotion, self-production, and the business sense that turns your art into a living.
Experience I am the most published Canadian arts entrepreneur.
The Actor's Survival Kit, Tax Kit 2000+, Tax CD, The Art of Managing Your Career.
Organizations Canadian Equity, ACTRA, AEA, BAEA
Publications The Actor's Survival Kit, Tax Kit 2000+, The Agents Book, The Art of Managing Your Career, The Organizer, Equity News, ACTRA newsletters.
Awards and Honors "Many people in the audience applauded warmly when it was time for him to leave the stage" (Local review of my Bill Walker in "Major Barbara" at the Shaw Festival.
Question Hi,
I am almost 18 years old, and am wanting to become an actress. The problem is that I have not a lot of training (mainly through middle school and camps) I went to a performing and visual arts high school, but did dance. Is there even a possibility of me becoming an actress with such little experience?
Answer Anything is possible in the performing business, but you have to look at the odds.
If you are in a small city, the number of companies hiring actors will be very small, and if you're in a large place, there will be thousands of actors attracted by the fact that there's work there. When it settles out, there are always plenty of actors looking for any one job. The more ways you can be better than others, the more likely it is that you'll be hired.
There are two groups in your competition: the trained and the experienced.
You are right to be unsatisfied with your training so far -- you have been exposed to all sorts or art but you aren't ready to earn a living through it.
At eighteen, many actresses have had some teen experience, perhaps some child actor work too. They have some knowledge of the way things are on set and in the rehearsal room, and also potential engagers can see that other people have taken the risk of hiring them.
You job is to get people to trust you and your ability.
You can do this by getting serious training. At the end, as well as some useful actor skills, you will have a smallish group of actors you know and can share information with, and some directors who have worked with you. At least you will have shown you take this acting thing seriously enough to stay with the course and graduate.
Another way is to become involved with the local independent productions. These may be small films with small budgets (perhaps through a local film school) or people putting on plays with no money. You see that there's no real chance of living on that work, but it is a learning ground and you will fill your résumé and make contact with people who are involved with productions that will actually pay you.
Now do some research. Find out where the local colleges are that offer acting courses (not Drama that is part of Literature). Look for film courses that need actors for their student productions. Ask librarians about local theatre festivals. Fringe productions are a good place to go when all you can offer is your enthusiasm. Rwad as many books as possible about being an actor. Not star biographies, which are just publicity pieces most often, but nuts-and-bolts primers about the actor's reality. Ask your librarian to show you where Dewey Decimal section 790 is.
Enjoy the things you do as you head toward being an actress. Don't let the big dream suck the joy out of your life while you get there.
