If Your Child Auditions for Professional Acting Jobs, Should You Participate in Community Theatre?

Image via Wikipedia, Acting Jobs or Community Theatre?

If your child auditions for professional acting jobs, being involved in community theatre can sometimes result in unexpected dilemmas. Certainly, your child is auditioning hoping to get acting jobs. But you never know when a booking will occur.

You don’t want your child to just sit around doing nothing while waiting to hear that an audition resulted in a booking. So it makes sense to allow your child to participate in free and even pay-to-play projects, such as community theatre (see What Can Musical Theatre Do for Your Child? for more on this topic), to get experience and build his/her resume.

Your child probably loves to act (and sing and dance), and that is why (hopefully) they are auditioning for acting jobs in the first place. So he or she is probably happiest when working, whether for free or for pay, and whether on stage or for film and tv.

My daughter just finished performing in a community theatre production of “Alice in Wonderland Junior.”  Many of the kids who participated in this production are also pursuing careers in the entertainment industry just as my daughter has been. This is very common in the LA area.

An Unexpected Booking Conflict

Just a few days before the show opened, one of the children participating in this musical theatre production booked an acting job — a national commercial.  This acting job required her to work on one of the days when there were two performances of the show.

This booking, one that normally would have been extremely exciting, caused the girl’s mother a great deal of stress. She never really thought about this conflict occurring nor how she would feel if it did nor how difficult it would be to handle if it did occur.

Needless to say, it also caused a lot of stress for the director, the child, and others involved in the play.  The director had to find another child who was willing and able to learn the part in four days and able to fill in on the day that the other child was working.

The mother spoke with me about how incredibly awful this experience was for her.  She is not a person who takes her commitments lightly, and when she was faced with this unexpected situation, dealing with it was very traumatic.

Expectations of Talent Representatives

Her child’s talent representative was not happy about it and explained that not taking the acting job could have negative consequences for her child. The casting director and others involved in that booking and job would be likely to avoid contact with her in the future. And Hollywood is a “small town” because word travels fast when actors do things that are viewed in a negative way.

She learned the hard way that you have to always expect and prepare for the unexpected when it comes to the entertainment industry.  While you always want to do your best to honor any commitments you make, when your child is pursuing a professional acting career, you have to put that acting career first. Otherwise, your child’s talent representation is likely to get very upset and perhaps even let your child go.

So, “If Your Child Auditions for Professional Acting Jobs, Should You Participate in Community Theatre?”

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Is It Worth It to Be In Musical Theatre Productions?

We’ve managed to make it through another local musical theatre production. This time, my daughter was in a musical production of “Hocus Pocus” and she played ‘Sarah,’ the dumb witch.

We are both exhausted. But I know she will look back on this musical theatre experience, as all the others she’s had, with great fondness. And I know she’ll share, for many years, a special closeness with the other cast members.

Of course, it is good experience, and she can put this on her resume. But that is really not what is most important to her about this experience.  She loves interacting with others and performing on stage for an audience.

So, “Is it worth it to be in musical theatre productions?”

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What Can Musical Theatre Do for Your Child?

My daughter loves doing theatre, and in particular, musical theatre.  She just performed as ‘Belle‘ in “Beauty and the Beast” this past weekend in a community musical theatre production.

She has been in eight community theatre productions over the last two years. This has kept both of us very busy.

The last several weeks have been incredibly busy with almost-daily dress and tech rehearsals.  Parents were busy helping with costumes and props, and assisting at rehearsals and performances.

I, for one, am glad to once again have time to fix a healthy dinner for my family and catch up on laundry, bill-paying, house cleaning, sleep, and all the other things that I’ve neglected over the last few weeks.

Yesterday, my daughter said, “I feel sad that it is over.”  I feel more relief than sadness that the show has come to an end, but I do understand how she feels.

For more than two months, she shared most of her time outside of school with these other kids, teens, and adults. They lived and breathed “Beauty and the Beast” as they sang and danced and acted, all working together to create this beautiful show. And through this experience, the cast members formed special bonds with each other.

As a 12-year-old ‘Belle,’ my daughter experienced something truly wonderful that she will always treasure. As she stood on the stage for a “Meet and Greet” session with the audience, young children gave her flowers and cards and posed for pictures with her.   To those children, she was ‘Belle,’ and that experience brought my daughter great joy.

Sure, there were frustrations and disappointments.  ‘Maurice’ and ‘The Beast/Prince‘ were not feeling well for the shows. And one of the shows was rained out as the performances are in an outdoor amphitheater.

But for the most part, those will not be the things my daughter remembers. What she will remember is the friendships she made and the incredible experience of being part of this show.

In case you are wondering, “What can musical theatre do for my child?” please continue reading.

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Should Your Child Do Musical Theatre or Any Theatre?

It has been a crazy week for us. My daughter just finished a musical theatre production. She played the lead role of ‘Inga’ in a family-friendly spoof of the movie Young Frankenstein with music from the Broadway show by the same name.

This was a local musical theatre production, but in productions in the LA area many of the kids and adults in the shows, as well as directors and choreographers are in showbiz. The result is typically a high-quality production.

We are both sad and relieved that the play has come to an end.

My daughter had a blast, as always, but it was tiring for her to go to all the rehearsals and shows and then go to school and get her homework done each day.  As a sixth grader in public school, she often has two to three hours of homework each night.

My daughter had rehearsals for four to five hours nearly every day for the last week before the show and then six performances. I was involved, as were other parents, helping with costuming, lighting, stage crew, and other production activities. So it was a busy time for both of us.

Why do we do theatre? We do it because my daughter loves it, and it makes her happy. She loves performing in front of an audience and she loves singing.

We did not do any theatre for some time because her acting teacher and manager did not want her to. We are no longer with that manager or with that acting teacher, and so now my daughter is enjoying doing shows several times a year.

Why do some talent managers, talent agents, and acting teachers not want their talent to do theatre?

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