Being an EPA Proctor

Describe your internship engagement:
(4.28.12)


Yesterday I got to play with cool software in the PR department and hang out with actors who came to visit the Studio for the EPA (Equity Principal Auditions). I was sitting behind the table asking for headshots and resumes for a couple hours indicating the Audition Forms and rehearsal calendars.

Actors are a lot of fun to watch. Some are very quiet, some are not, most of them were very polite to me. One of them was a little weird, probably because she was nervous. I particularly enjoyed watching how the behavior of our Casting Coordinator changed as she floated between situations with actors verses her co-workers in the office.

What struck me the most about the EPA was how actors with AEA (Actors Equity Association) membership were treated compared to those who were non-union or EMC (Equity Membership Candidate).  I know that being part of Equity comes with perks and benefits but the AEA tag next to certain names seemed a little arbitrary. I was always under the impression that AEA was so illustrious and such a milestone mark of one's professionalism that anyone that was a bonafide union member would be at the top of their game. But the two hours I was audition proctoring told me otherwise. For a lack of anything else to do I took the liberty to glance at resumes and see what people have been up to and how they chose to represent themselves and their work on paper. The prettiest resume I saw was from the last actor to audition before we were all done for the day. This resume was well-organized, readable, done with normal font and normal paper, and most importantly it was dense. A dense resume tells me that you are busy. I think it's better to have a dense resume that I don't have time to read all the way through than have something that looks too light or too padded. My only suggestion might have been to consider moving his Education section closer to the bottom so that all his Theatre credits would be the first thing I see after his name/contact/basic info. Although he did go to Tisch School of the Arts at NYU so that does leave quite an impression...

In addition to having a sharp-looking resume this actor also decided to talk to me and save me from dire boredom. He was friendly and I enjoyed the random networking opportunity. He was confident and down-to-earth and I hope that this carried with him into his audition.