Friday, April 22, 2011

Are there any good acting schools in Massachusetts?


I really want to try and become an actress. I live in Massachusetts near Boston. Also, if I were to move...which is better New York or L.A to pursue an acting career?
Theater & Acting - 3 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
I live in Boston too and I'm trying to find acting schools. ITS SO HARD, MAN! You would think acting classes would be everywhere here. Cpcasting.com has a class that I was going to take but there isn't enough kids signing up so they had to temporarily cancel it. You should sign up.
2 :
I'm going to answer your N.Y. or LA question first and then your Boston predicament. It depends on what kind of acting you'd like to do. LA will primarily book you film stuff (mostly commercials to be realistic) and NY will mostly book you stage roles (if you're lucky). But you can find either one in both cities and plenty of voice over work which pays ALOT and is totally underrated. Okay now on to Boston: If you want to be a professional actor in Boston I would suggest joining stagesource. Stagesource (google this) has annual auditions for pretty much every major theater company in the area and you don't need to have an equity card to participate (thought you do need to pay to be a stage source member). Stagesource makes it so you don't really need to get your equity card in Boston unless you get cast in a show that requires you get your card (and I believe those are pretty rare in Boston though pretty much every professional theater in NY will demand you be a AEmember). There are also plenty of community theaters/fringe theater companies/non-professional theaters around Boston that you can audition for to pad your resume with. They probably won't lead to a professional career but you'll gain experience and more importantly contacts with other cast members/behind the scenes theater people who can hook you up down the line (you never know where your fellow actors/crew members will end up and who will want to take you with them..) I check a few audition websites like NETheater411, or emact.org (google these) and have found a lot of great theater companies this way, most of which most their casting calls their websites. Now, if you're still young (if you look around eight to fifteen years old) and are pretty attractive you can get some work through BostonCasting which is a pretty good casting agency in the area that works really hard for their kids as long as their kids work really hard for them--but this place is primarily modeling so you need to be consistently cute. The plus side of Bostoncasting is that you'll sometimes book stuff outside of Boston and it is professional work so who knows where that'll lead you. I'll leave you with the most important pieces of advice: Go to college (you can major in theater), remember that any casting agency that asks you for money up front without booking you a job (John Robert Powers..) is a scam, and be persistent in what you want. Good luck!
3 :
You don't need to go anywhere right now if you'd like to act on film. Go to NewEnglandFilm.com. and hack your little heart out in every department. You can contact me for further assistance if you'd like with your parents approval. Get the education and experience while jumping into the fire at the same time.