Can someone look this over: Is this a good format for my beginners theatre resume? Please help!?

Question

Name
Phone number
email

Height: Weight: Hair: Eyes:


THEATRE:

A Midsummer’s Night Dream Ensemble (High school name)
Dir. (Name)

TRAINING:
Theatre Major (B.S), City College of New York,
New York, NY

Theatre Major (A.S), Borough Manhattan Community College New York, NY.

SPECIAL SKILLS:

Dialects: British (standard), American (Southern)
Languages: Beginner Spanish

* I obviously took out VERY personal info like my name, and only left the schools I have attended. I am an aspiring actress and have only acted ONCE my whole entire life in a play in high school and that is it, and am right now studying acting as a theatre major. I have taken acting I & II classes and voice and moment and that actually counts toward acting. Is it ok the way I formated my experience and training? I didn;t have "legit" training, but can what i put down still count as training in the training category. After my current school I plan on transferring to an actual acting school or conservatory that specializes in acting only. In the meantime I want to get out there and start going to auditions and getting experience at community theater's. I was told I have to mail in my resume and headshot to the theatre and they will contact me for auditions if I look like i might fit the part. I don't want to lie on my resume and be upfront with my experience. I want my training to speak for itself. Lastly, what about the headshots? Can I take a photo of myself and use that as a headshot? I don't have the money to take professional photo's yet? Would that be ok for community theatre? I live in NYC if that helps. Lastly, even though I never had professional training in those dialects can I still put them down on my resume? I have practiced doing those accents before and tried getting tips online its not perfect, but its a try.

Answer 1

You've got the general format correct, just a few tweaks:



-Your credits should be on one line apiece (may be a yahoo answers thing).



-You don't need to list the city and state of your schools.



-List the actual names of your teachers, something like:

Acting: Jo Smo, Merideth Condor, Bob Roberts

Voice/Singing: Marky Mark, Betty Boop

Dance: Eric the Red, Captain Hook

Stage Combat: Darth Vader

These names function as your references. If you audition for someone who knows someone on your resume, they'll ask you (and quite possibly call them to see what you're like). It's a good way to get to know casting folk.



-For special skills include any instruments you play and how long you've played them.



-Do not list Spanish as a language unless you could do a cold reading of a script written in Spanish with less than ten minutes preparation. I've seen it happen.



-Since you haven't had formal training, find someone who is very familiar with British dialects and run yours by them. If they say it's good, keep it on the resume as either RP (Received Pronunciation aka "The Queen's English"), Estuary (close to RP, more like what you hear on the BBC), or Cockney. Do keep the American Southern dialect.



-Keep the heading "Theatre".





As for headshots, you do want to get professional headshots as soon as possible. In the meantime at least ask around and find out if any of your friends have photography equipment and would be willing to help you out. You can also seek out photography students who will be willing to take some headshots for $100 or so. For community theatre you can get by with less-than-stellar headshots, but being in NYC you're going into a market flooded with aspiring actors, so expect more competition than usual.

Answer 2

Your resume looks pretty good for a beginner. I'm proud of you. Most beginners try to fill their resume so that it doesn't look so plain, but you are keeping it clean, honest and straight to the point. I can tell you do your research. However, there is one thing I would consider changing its up to you and I don't think it should be counted against you is what you wrote in the theatre category. Yes, I think you should turn it into experience until you start doing plays in college or at an actual theatre. My reason for saying this is that plays usually done in high school isn't really theatre, theatre. You get what I mean? Its a little difficult to describe. It is theatre, because it deals with performing plays, but anyway. Regardless, your resume is fine. As for the dialects I don't think it can hurt to keep them there. IF you are good at impersonating a british or souther accent then fine. It's good u put the word standard. Don't specify the exact accents you can do unless you are fluent in it and have taken an actual class for this and know the difference. As for the headshot. You need to take a clear photo of yourself and make sure it looks like you for when you show up for auditions. The problem with taking a photo yourself is that the quality might be bad, it might not look anything like you and you will be taking photos of yourself as to how you think you look as opposed to how you really look. Get what I mean? If you do it yourself make sure you have a high megapixel camera and got your friend to take a photo of what you look like. I would still recommend that you take a professional photo of yourself ASAP if you want to stand a chance being cast for anything. Besides you will have to eventually for more elaborate theatre productions. Lastly, as for the training that is good for now and its good you specified you are a theatre major to show that you are getting classes in acting in their somewhere. However, what you wrote would be more in the education category than training. So be sure that u do take that professional acting class and enroll in a great acting program like NYU or Stellar Adler.



Best of luck.

Answer 3

Its good, but put your experiences ( past theater play(s), and a headshot is NOT a snapshot it must be taken by a professional who is adept to these kind of pictures.....