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No Freebies Please, We're ProfessionalsDateline: 15th January, 2006People become actors because that is how they want to make their living. They go through three years of rigorous (and expensive) training to develop their already existing talent. They work long hours during the relearsal period (rehearsal, line-learning, research). They spend a great deal of time out of work, on the dole or working at low-paid, unskilled jobs - if they are not lucky enough to get low-paid drama-related work like leading workshops in prisons or schools or elsewhere. When they are working, the chances are that they are not earning a great deal, unless they get TV (including adverts) or film work. Why then should they respond to the numerous adverts we see in the trade press, email newsletters and similar places for "profit share" jobs, where the chances are that the profits won't cover their expenses? Surely this is just a rip-off? In an ideal world that would be true, but unfortunately the world we have is far from ideal. There are more actors than there are jobs, and life is made much more difficult for the newcomer to the business by the fact that, to get one of this limited number of jobs, you need to be seen, or to be seen to have been employed in the past. A director or casting director sends out requirements to a number of trusted agents. CVs and headshots of suggested performers are returned. Some are clearly unsuitable because they don't look right for the part, but there are plenty left. How do you choose who you will audition? Time is not unlimited, so you look at the CVs. If there's a reasonable list of parts, then you choose a group whom you consider to have the right sort of experience and you audition them. But for the poor actor, this is a Catch-22 situation: if you haven't got the experience, then your chances of getting the all-important auditions are reduced. It's not impossible - all directors would like to discover new talent - but it certainly isn't easy. So what you've got to do is find some way of bulking out the CV with some good work to make you a more attractive proposition for audition - and then, of course, it's up to you. So what do you do? You take on unpaid or profit-share work to add it to the CV, and if it is the sort of work where you might be seen by a director or casting director, such as a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, or to which you can invite an agent, all the better. Of course, it is usually young, new or untried companies (or directors, or writers) which offer this kind of work, and they are in exactly the same position. They, too, need to get their work seen and to fill up their CVs, but if there are few jobs going for actors, there are even fewer for them, and for a new company with no track record to find funding is even more difficult. There's also a kind of halfway-house. A company finds enough funding to pay for a number of performances or for a tour, but not for rehearsals, so they ask actors to rehearse for free but be paid for performance - and sometimes the rehearsal period can be longer than the performance. "Don't do it!" many established actors say. "You are devaluing both yourself and the profession." But if it's a case of no work or unpaid work which might help you get paid work in future, what do you do? Most actors will choose the latter. The result? A better CV, possibly some money from the profits (if there are any), more experience, work not dole, even (occasionally) being spotted by a director, casting director or agent. Or possibly nothing. It's a gamble. But it's a gamble that new or young actors, directors and companies have to take. I've done it myself. As a producer/director of small-scale tours, I've not only not been paid, I've actually lost money, but it's paid off in the long run, once the company was established. And that's why I'm still willing to risk it - and why, at the age of 61, I appeared (unpaid) in a film for the first time last year. It's on my CV - and you never know who might see it and think I'm just the person they're looking for!
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