If Your Child Auditions for Professional Acting Jobs, Should You Participate in Community Theatre?

Image via Wikipedia, Acting Jobs or Community Theatre?

If your child auditions for professional acting jobs, being involved in community theatre can sometimes result in unexpected dilemmas. Certainly, your child is auditioning hoping to get acting jobs. But you never know when a booking will occur.

You don’t want your child to just sit around doing nothing while waiting to hear that an audition resulted in a booking. So it makes sense to allow your child to participate in free and even pay-to-play projects, such as community theatre (see What Can Musical Theatre Do for Your Child? for more on this topic), to get experience and build his/her resume.

Your child probably loves to act (and sing and dance), and that is why (hopefully) they are auditioning for acting jobs in the first place. So he or she is probably happiest when working, whether for free or for pay, and whether on stage or for film and tv.

My daughter just finished performing in a community theatre production of “Alice in Wonderland Junior.”  Many of the kids who participated in this production are also pursuing careers in the entertainment industry just as my daughter has been. This is very common in the LA area.

An Unexpected Booking Conflict

Just a few days before the show opened, one of the children participating in this musical theatre production booked an acting job — a national commercial.  This acting job required her to work on one of the days when there were two performances of the show.

This booking, one that normally would have been extremely exciting, caused the girl’s mother a great deal of stress. She never really thought about this conflict occurring nor how she would feel if it did nor how difficult it would be to handle if it did occur.

Needless to say, it also caused a lot of stress for the director, the child, and others involved in the play.  The director had to find another child who was willing and able to learn the part in four days and able to fill in on the day that the other child was working.

The mother spoke with me about how incredibly awful this experience was for her.  She is not a person who takes her commitments lightly, and when she was faced with this unexpected situation, dealing with it was very traumatic.

Expectations of Talent Representatives

Her child’s talent representative was not happy about it and explained that not taking the acting job could have negative consequences for her child. The casting director and others involved in that booking and job would be likely to avoid contact with her in the future. And Hollywood is a “small town” because word travels fast when actors do things that are viewed in a negative way.

She learned the hard way that you have to always expect and prepare for the unexpected when it comes to the entertainment industry.  While you always want to do your best to honor any commitments you make, when your child is pursuing a professional acting career, you have to put that acting career first. Otherwise, your child’s talent representation is likely to get very upset and perhaps even let your child go.

So, “If Your Child Auditions for Professional Acting Jobs, Should You Participate in Community Theatre?”

There are differing opinions about whether your child should do community theatre while pursuing a professional acting career. Some talent representatives (managers and agents) and some acting teachers and coaches are likely to tell you not to do local theatre while actively auditioning for acting jobs. Others will tell you it is a great thing to do because it gives your child more acting experience and more items for your child’s resume.

Benefits of Performing in Community Theatre

Community theatre can have many benefits for your child actor. It is good acting experience and often brings about feelings of confidence and camaraderie with other cast members. It is also good practice in memorization of lines.

Being in community theatre also can help with the development of improv skills (see “What is Improv?” for more on this topic) which are often used in live performances to fill dead time due to missed entrances, costume problems, dropped or incorrect lines, or other technical difficulties.

Negatives

On the other hand, it is easy to understand why doing community theatre might be viewed negatively by talent representatives and acting teachers. Being tied up with community theatre can result in missed auditions and jobs and less time for preparing for auditions. The style of acting in theatre is also typically louder and exaggerated in comparison to tv and film acting.

Understand the Pros and Cons

This is a decision that you will personally have to make with your child. When you make the decision, it is best to think about and understand the possible consequences and weigh the pros and cons.

If community theatre is something you decide you want your child actor to do, take time to think about and understand the conflicts that may arise.  There are some things you should consider and some steps that you can take to try to avoid problem situations and to better deal with conflict situations when they arise, such as the following:

1. Before signing with or verbally committing to a talent representative, find out and make sure you agree with their views about being in community theatre and participating in other free and pay-to-pay projects. Some managers will not allow you to participate in non-paying projects that could conflict with auditions for paying jobs and with the jobs themselves.
2. Make sure that the director of  the community theatre production understands from the very start that your child auditions for professional acting jobs and that if a booking occurs, your child would have a conflict, especially if your child auditions frequently. The community theatre director will hopefully line up backup (either double-casting or an understudy) for your child’s role so they are prepared for a situation like this. Note that in some cases, your child may be denied the role based on this.
3. Inform your talent representatives of your involvement in such a production so they are aware of your commitments and associated dates. They may still ask you to drop out if something big comes along, but letting them know of your conflicts should help.
4. If you don’t want to have to drop out of a play or go back on your commitment to a free or pay-to-play project and leave others in a tight spot, book your child out for the performances so that such a schedule conflict does not occur. This could result in missed auditions and jobs and might not make your talent reps happy, but it may be better than the alternative.
5. Check the audition, callback, and shoot dates when your child auditions and when you submit your child for auditions and avoid those that will conflict with the performances. You can turn down auditions or callbacks that will conflict with mandatory dress rehearsals and performances or at least inform the theatre director as early as possible of potential problems. These dates are often posted  in the breakdown for theatrical auditions. They are often provided on the sign in sheet or perhaps posted on the wall at the initial audition and/or at the callbacks for commercial auditions and sometimes also for theatrical auditions. You can also often get the callback and shoot schedule from your agent or manager, but only do that if you could not get the date another way and when it is really urgent that you know exactly what the dates will be.
6. Understand that conflicts can still occur no matter how hard you try to avoid them and try not to beat yourself up over them. Stay calm, do your best to work them out, and do whatever you can to apologize to and thank/reward anyone who is inconvenienced by the conflict. This sort of thing is pretty common in the Los Angeles area.

Booking professional acting jobs is a wonderful thing, so be sure to do everything you can to make the experience a good one for you and for your child!

For more information on this topic and other topics related to children and show business, please sign up for Your Young Actor’s Newsletter. You’ll also get a free mini-course on getting started in show business.

To much success and happiness,

Debbie Sikkema