Travel and Touring for Acting Jobs
You can live in one of the three biggest theatre communities in the country — New York, Chicago, or L.A. — and you can find available acting jobs or auditions in some of the hundreds of shows produced there every year, and you can call that enough. But if you really want to work — all the time, that is — you have to think outside the metropolitan box. Travel and touring is a crucial part of the actor's performance portfolio.
If you like to travel, landing a role in a national tour might be just the ticket for you. It can be thrilling to wake up in Ohio on Monday and go to bed in New Mexico on Friday, especially when you're performing the same role every night. It can also be exhausting.
Which is why many actors, rather than logging thousands of miles on tour, prefer forming long-lasting relationships with nonprofit regional theatres. Each of them offers something new, from the verdant beauty of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park to the high-altitude freshness of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Find out what kind of work these companies do — new plays? Shakespeare? musicals? avant-garde? — and start auditioning. Also consider attending the regular combined regional auditions like NETC, Strawhat, UPTA and SETC.
And that's just for landlubbers. Every year, scores of actors find available acting jobs by auditioning for gigs on cruise ships — to sing and dance in shipboard revues, to wow crowds in cabaret acts, or to play piano amid the nightly cocktail chatter. The cruise ship industry is growing very quickly, so naturally the opportunities for actors are growing as well. Plus, insiders know that performance schedules on cruise ships are different from those on land — actors typically work a lighter performance schedule than their earthbound brethren
LINKS
Theatre Cross-Country: A Look at the 2005-06 Season
Stage work from coast to coast.
Off Broadway Booking: A New Brand of Tour
Getting small shows across the U.S.
Broadway Tours Reap $700 Million
Total grosses from the road.
Tour Awards Spotlight 'Movin' Out,' 'Graduate'
Performance honors from the road.
Equity Okays NEAT
New contract for New England Area Theatres
AEA Okays LORT Pact
Members back a three-year deal.
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