Of the directors and industry representatives interviewed for this article, perhaps the person who comes closest to accurately summing up his role is Joe McConnell, a nationally respected casting director who specializes in musical theater. “I assume that the reason anyone engages a casting director is for efficiency,” he says. “Efficient and innovative—someone’s got to get the job of helping the director execute his or her ideal vision of someone for the role. So you’re there to be resourceful. You’re a yenta.”
A key part of the strategy is not only the physical look of the potential performers coming through the door, but the credits that have earned the performer the right or the expectation to be there. This is where having a stellar résumé becomes key.
“It’s my job,” says McConnell, “to make sure that I’m providing choices, but not wasting anybody’s time, which is probably why, more than anything else, singers have to make sure that they make their résumés as honest as possible. Because I have to solicit talent that is a ‘match,’ singers just can’t afford to be anything less than that in terms of how they present their experience to me, or to the director.”
The following will give you a clear idea of how to create that hard-hitting but easy-to-access résumé.
Vital Statistics
Every résumé has a short but important list of elements that need to appear on it. If these elements do not appear prominently, the résumé will quickly be regarded as substandard or even unprofessional. It’s not a very long list: the singer’s name, a contact phone number (preferably a service or—better still—voice mail), a full accounting of union affiliations, and representation details (if any) are the chief elements. But sometimes, according to McConnell, these are among the items that don’t appear. “You’d be surprised… it actually happens maybe 10% of the time that people don’t include something as logical as a phone number,” he sighs.
McConnell suggests that you will also want to provide those reading your résumé with a thorough sense of your physical dimensions, so include your height (to the inch), weight (to the pound—sorry), and incidentals such as hair color and eye color. (Operatic résumés do require that you list your weight, although it has been reported that some companies are now asking singers to fill out weight and dress/suit size on a pre-audition application.)
Credits—General Notes
Singers sometimes think they are being impressive when they try to squeeze in every single credit. “It’s overwhelming,” says Renee Panichelli, an agent. “Worse yet are singers—who, I’m afraid, are very often older—who don’t have a computer or know how to use one, so they end up writing all their recent credits in ink, and in script, which is impossible to read. They end up writing them up the side of the page or wherever they can put it. The most important thing is to format your résumé in a legible manner.”
Panichelli continues, “Generally, if you do have some credits, list the roles that are largest first, but only list those that actually represent roles that would fit who you are if you were out auditioning in the marketplace. If you’re 18 years old, don’t put down [some huge Wagnerian role] at the top of the page because, let’s be honest, no one’s going to cast you. Be realistic about it.”
Joe McConnell echoes the call to realism, especially where listing directors are concerned. “Sometimes,” says McConnell, “it can be a good idea—a very good idea, actually—but only if the directors you have worked with are important or well-known in the industry, or are otherwise impressive.” A good rule of thumb, then, is that the more important or prominent the director, the more advantageous and impressive it will be to associate their name with yours on your résumé. McConnel concludes, “Don’t ever say you were cast in something that you weren’t really in. Someone is going to call you on it, and that’s the worst thing that can happen to you in an audition.”
Credits—Getting Organized
The section that lists your credits is usually organized by genre: Opera, Oratorio, Recitals and Concerts. If you have a great deal of experience in one particular genre, you may choose to break things down even more specifically. You could separate your performances year-by-year, or group your “A” companies together, your “B” companies, etc.
Some early-career singers will disclose any special training they’ve had—not as good as actual experience, of course, but clearly a step in the right direction. For very small roles, you might just cite the name of the opera, since one assumes only larger parts will have character names.
Also, once you’ve arrived at a satisfactory layout for your résumé, it isn’t hard to develop more than one version. You can then decide which to submit, depending on the part you are auditioning for.. For instance, for opera jobs you would list operatic credits first, while for oratorio jobs you would list oratorio credits first, and so on.
Training and Special Skills
The following is adapted from last year’s Back Stage article on résumés, written by Jill Charles, co-author of The Singer’s Picture/Résumé Book.
You need a section that will show the casting director where and with whom you trained, and that will identify the areas and extent of your training in acting, voice, dance, and related theater skills. It isn’t necessary to list every person with whom you ever took a seminar, but list names that might be familiar to people in the industry. Include apprenticeships or internships with highly regarded theaters here, even if you worked in a non-singing capacity.
The “special skills” section should show related talents that might be useful, or that could be an extra attraction to a company. Start with theater-related skills like stage combat, acrobatics, musical instruments, accents, and dialects. Include athletic abilities. You can add almost anything you do well to the list. These things can also generate conversation at an interview or audition.
Two caveats on the “special skills” section: Don’t get too cute, and don’t put down anything you can’t back up. If you list ‘Donald Duck imitation’, you’d better be able to do it on the spot and do it well. Likewise, any dialects you list should be those you actually could do at an audition, if called for, without special preparation.
Your Graphic Image
You should give the layout and composition of your résumé every bit as much energy as you devoted to your photo: You want to project a professional image, but at the same time create a look that “feels right” for you. Go to a copy center where there is a display of résumés, and step back from a group of them: Which draw your eye? Things like typeface, lines, borders, “white space,” and arrangement of copy lines will make a résumé not only striking looking, but easy to read.
With the ready availability of desktop publishing, image scanning, clip-art and the like, there is every opportunity for creating an attractive and unique professional résumé. Pay attention at auditions, and you’ll see around you fancy borders, small photo reproductions, creative type-faces and unusual paper stock, all making up individualized résumés that stand out from the crowd. The trick is to stay on the side of ‘professional’ and not cross the thin line into ‘cutesy’ or ‘overdone’ or just ‘trying too hard’. It’s a question of taste, for the most part.
You may have the capabilities for doing your résumé yourself on a computer with a high-quality (preferably laser) printer. If you can’t do your own résumés, be sure you find a service that offers not only high-quality graphics, but also a storage service, so that your résumé can be simply—and cheaply—updated as needed. Once you are satisfied with the look of your original, you’re ready to reproduce it, remembering that the layout of the résumé must fall within an 8 x 10” space, so it can be trimmed to match your photo without overlapping edges.
Marketing Yourself
Once you have created the ultimate picture-résumé, of course you must decide what to do with it. Aside from submitting it when requested and bringing it with you to auditions, how will you distribute it to the people you want to impress? In many years of researching this article, Back Stage has interviewed scores of agents, casting directors, and directors. These points come up consistently:
1. Target your mailing carefully. Rather than blanketing the city with your picture-résumé, make a concerted effort and research your target.
2. Do your research. Find out which managers are most open to new talent, and find out how they like to be approached. Do you need to mail to every manager in a particular agency, or just to one?
3. Include a brief, professional note or cover letter specifically stating what you wish to achieve by sending your picture-résumé. For example, “Please consider me for the role of . . . in your upcoming production of . . . ”.
4. Keep in touch with occasional postcards, once you have gotten your picture-résumé in the director’s file: ‘I was just hired to sing Second Lady for Opera at Florham!’
5. Keep careful records of your contacts. General Directors and managers are in constant flux, and you always need to be up on their whereabouts. Keep an up-to-date copy of Musical America (available at Classical Singer magazine at a discount) and scour trade magazines such as Classical Singer magazine for news of staff changes.
6. How about the Internet? Is that a viable way of getting into the right casting offices? At this point in time, it still isn’t a substitute for the filing cabinets lining the offices of managements and opera companies. This is largely because there has not arisen a single online service which supports enough singers—and those at a high enough level of talent and experience—to make it an efficient way for agents to look for new clients, or for casting directors to look for talent to bring in to auditions. This may change—in fact, it’s likely to change—in the next few years.
Jill Charles is a frequent contributor to Back Stage, and co-authored, with theatrical photographer Tom Bloom, The Singer’s Picture/Résumé Book. As artistic director of Vermont’s Dorset Theatre Festival, she estimates she has looked at more than 40,000 picture-résumés over the past 25 years. Drama specialty bookstores across the country stock The Singer’s Picture/Résumé Book. It can also be purchased via mail by check or credit card for $16.95 (add $3.00 per book for regular shipping,$4.25 per book for priority mail) from Theatre Directories, P.O. Box 510, Dorset, VT, 05251; or call (802)867-2223; Fax (802) 867-0144; or log onto the web at: www.theatredirectories.com.
This article originall appeared in the March 23, 2001 issue of Back Stage.
