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?”
