How To Be A Working Actor: The Insider's Guide to Finding Jobs in Theater, Film, and Television

Rating:
Summary: Good for New York and LA
Review: When I bought this book, it was after leaving my college's theater department to move to Chicago. While the advice the book offers is remarkably down-to-earth and well-researched, it focuses almost exclusively on New York and LA, including listings of businesses and contacts.
The book offers... good advice that it almost makes New York a tempting place to go, just because I now feel I know the ropes before even auditioning.
As for Chicago, it's briefly mentioned with the attitude it's little more than where you'll have your layover as you fly to your sitcom audition. With such laser focus on just two cities, it becomes difficult to distinguish the general advice from the specific. With a little effort, you should be able to sift through the dropped names to the heart of the material.
The book's greatest strength is probably the gentle disillusionment it nudges its readers with. It removes the ideallised view of theater and replaces it with the truth; that it's hard work. Portfolios are hard work, auditions are hard work, shows are hard work. It helped me get it through my head that I wouldn't be auditioning against 4 other people for a role in a week-long run of a play after graduating, but more likely against about 400 other people, all my character type, for a long-run gig or national commercial. Yet despite all the discouraging realities, the authors have so much good advice to give that you'll feel you know what you need when the time comes.
So if you're looking at New York theater, or NY/LA commercials, you NEED this book. If you're doing a tour, or hitting Chicago, Orlando or Atlanta, it will make for some good reading. And it looks impressive to your office-job friends when they see it on your shelf next to the Best Monologues of 1999.

Rating:
Summary: Good for New York and LA
Review: When I bought this book, it was after leaving my college's theater department to move to Chicago. While the advice the book offers is remarkably down-to-earth and well-researched, it focuses almost exclusively on New York and LA, including listings of businesses and contacts.
The book offers... good advice that it almost makes New York a tempting place to go, just because I now feel I know the ropes before even auditioning.
As for Chicago, it's briefly mentioned with the attitude it's little more than where you'll have your layover as you fly to your sitcom audition. With such laser focus on just two cities, it becomes difficult to distinguish the general advice from the specific. With a little effort, you should be able to sift through the dropped names to the heart of the material.
The book's greatest strength is probably the gentle disillusionment it nudges its readers with. It removes the ideallised view of theater and replaces it with the truth; that it's hard work. Portfolios are hard work, auditions are hard work, shows are hard work. It helped me get it through my head that I wouldn't be auditioning against 4 other people for a role in a week-long run of a play after graduating, but more likely against about 400 other people, all my character type, for a long-run gig or national commercial. Yet despite all the discouraging realities, the authors have so much good advice to give that you'll feel you know what you need when the time comes.
So if you're looking at New York theater, or NY/LA commercials, you NEED this book. If you're doing a tour, or hitting Chicago, Orlando or Atlanta, it will make for some good reading. And it looks impressive to your office-job friends when they see it on your shelf next to the Best Monologues of 1999.