Here’s a question about workshops and professional acting in general. A Hacktor has been doing workshops because they know of no other way into the casting room but they soon realize this isn’t a way into the room. It’s just gambling but you actually might have NO chance of getting an audition because your skills might not be at a level where you can be considered a professional. If that’s your situation, you have literally wasted your money entirely because you have paid someone to see you should not be called in…not a very good use of your savings/earnings.

The question of how to know when one is ready is a good one. No one can ever be certain because everyone has their own opinion and you can do good work one day for one character and maybe bad work the next for another character. Only you can say for certain you ‘believe’ you are ready to audition. But a lot of it has to do with preparation. Can you prepare a fully formed audition of up to 10 pages and be off book in a few hours because that is going to happen, so if you can’t do that, you are not ready. You also need to be able to break down material and slip into the role seamlessly and live through your performance so the writers who may be in the room with you forget that it is their material you are performing. If you can captivate a writer with their own material, you will work my friend, you will work!

Hacktor Question:

In some sense, I guess you don’t decide. Others decide when you’re ready. So this also a question about confidence, so one can start being more proactive. I guess you don’t really know you’re good enough until you’re actually doing it. I’m worried about trying to start too soon.

My current strategy has been to do CD workshops and meet & greets, but be VERY prepared for these things. As I’ve learned here, if the goal is to get work, it’s like playing the lottery (I know a lot of actors in NYC that charged into this activity, but then gave up after a while — now I know why).

How do you know if you’re really good enough to start auditioning for professional work?

David’s Answer:

I’m not sure you can watch yourself and tell if you’re doing a good job because you’ll be thinking about choices you made and what you were thinking when you did it, etc. I think I knew when I started doing some classes where the teacher would tell actors ‘you booked it’, or they told you what was wrong with the performances. I was getting ‘you booked it’ a lot and started to feel like i was really starting to ‘get it’, whereas the other actors weren’t really progressing. I would audition like crazy for student stuff, and theatre too. Make sure you’re getting good feedback from them, but a class is really where you will get honest feedback. Also you’ll know when you start to live through things, and not just remembering lines. Really there are a lot of ways to figure it out. For me it was when I really started to understand ‘story’. Once I really understood that, my performances were illuminating instead of confusing. I think most actors hang themselves by giving themselves a short rope. They don’t let their performances go far enough. Especially in comedy, drama is what sells the joke, also drama sells drama too, so you have to be willing to ‘go there.’ The place where the average human would be embarrassed or feel foolish.

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How do you know if you’re good enough to start auditioning for professional work?

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