Title:  An Actor Prepares to Work in New York City (How to Master the Business of “The Business”)

Author: Craig Wroe

ISBN: 087910306

Copyright:  2004

Advice: Own it.

Remember the days just after you graduated school and were prepared to rule the world? You had a clear grasp of scansion for the very first and quite possible the last time in your life.  Ibsen…no sweat.  You and Chekhov were spiritual brothers.  You were an acting god.  You had determination just flowing from your pores.  Broadway better watch out because there you were trained as an artist and ready to create the crap out of the first “real” role that you land.  One nagging little question kept popping up: 

What do I do now?

How do you enter into the business of show BUSINESS?  If I may hazard a little guess, not much time in your training was spent on being a professional actor.  The majority of actor training seems to be spent on developing your acting chops and it seems that the business stuff will be learned through the school of trial and error. If this is the case for you, then don’t hang your head in shame because help is on the way in the form of Craig Wroe’s book.

An Actor Prepares to Work in New York City (How to Master the business of “The Business”) is just the book for you.  It covers all aspects of your career from the early days till you are established.  As you probably deduced from the title, it does center on the large market of New York City. Don’t let this deter you from reading this book; it is pertinent to your career no matter which market you call home.

Mr. Wroe starts his book off in a logical fashion.  The headshot is the actor’s business card and this is one of the first chapters followed by resumes.  He offers advice on what to look for in a photographer, how to prepare for you session, the shoot itself and finally the difficult task of picking the “one” headshot.  All of these suggestions are very useful and can be applied by a baby actor as well as one long in the tooth.

His discussion on resumes is very interesting and concisely stated.  I really enjoyed his answer to that old catch 22 that most actors have faced at one time or another, “How to get experience when you need experience to gain experience”. The words “fuzzy math” should come to mind to give you a little hint as to his answer.  Such things as renaming your high school auditorium with your mother’s maiden name, listing every thing you have done, using larger font, double spacing, etc.

Wroe states:

What the industry doesn’t know about (nor do they care to know for that matter) is every little, out-of-the-way, non-professional or community theater you’ve worked in.  All they want to know is if you’ve had any experience in front of an audience, if you can say your lines without bumping into the furniture and if you can create a character. Minor fibs such as these give them some assurance that you have, you won’t and you can.

He also gives a working format for your resume. To be fair, Wroe strongly urges you to purge any white lies as soon as possible with “legitimate acting work”.

The book goes on to discuss mailings, agents, casting directors, auditions, interviews, personal presentation.  Each topic is addressed from viewpoint of here’s what you need to know to be successful.  It is clear from his writing style that Wroe is on your side and wants you to be successful.  He even goes so far as to discuss possible pitfalls, scams and con artists that you should be aware of in your career.  I found this to be very informative.  There is some discussions of the various unions and small section on demo reels for film work.

Where the book goes off the mark a little bit is in the chapters entitled “Respect” and “Take Control”.  I don’t disagree with his sentiments but his writing style got a little too “self-help book” for me.  His discussion on not buying pirated CD’s, DVD’s, or films along with his call for actors to volunteer in the community and to recycle; well, came across a little preachy.  Again, I am not against recycling, community service, or other artists getting paid for their art; however, these issues seem to be very loosely connected to the rest of the subject matter of this book

Wroe redeems himself with the “Index of Actor Resources”.  There is a lot of information on the various aspects covered in the entire book.  He covers Acting Unions to lawyers to tax write-offs to training institutions in the index.  Again, this is geared towards the aspiring New York actor but is still valuable to the rest of us.

Craig Wroe has lived and worked in New York City since 1984 and fills this 257 page book with a lot of his personal experience which gives this book credence.  His personal stories make this read a little faster and definitely more enjoyable than a textbook.  I would like to close by suggesting that acting programs add this book to the “Must” read lists for their students.

Buy it from Amazon!

Buy it from Limelight Editions!

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