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You’ve done it! You’ve gotten an amazing voiceover agent. The sound equipment you’ve put together is perfectly suited for your voice and your home studio is an oasis of creativity. After months of commercial auditions, your inbox dings with the opportunity you’ve been waiting for since starting your voiceover journey: an animation audition! Panic sets in. It has been your dream to audition for animation since you were old enough…

Got a co-star audition and not sure where to begin? Well, welcome to the right place! These 7 tips will help set yourself up for success so you can nail your co-star audition. 1) UNDERSTAND YOUR FUNCTION IN THE SCENE.  Co-star roles in television, and featured roles in film, are considered functionary roles. A functionary role – you guessed it! – serves a function in the telling of the story….

We asked voiceover expert and Acting Studio Chicago instructor, Brad Grusnick, to share his advice for new voice actors. Check out the Q & A below for Brad’s advice on agents, opportunities in other markets, and how to break into gaming and animation. 1) For new voice actors just starting out in their career, how do you suggest they find voiceover opportunities? Take classes and hone your skills. Too many…

Notes from the field: Casting Directors Bob Mason, Lauren Port, Nick Bowling, Nik Whitcomb, Carey Cannon & Catherine Miller weigh in. I was fortunate enough to attend a 2-hour discussion with 6, yeah that’s right, 6 Casting Directors in Nicole Ricciardi’s Audition class at The Theatre School/DePaul. The panel was both informative and reassuring. I’m excited they agreed to let me share my takeaways about self-tapes from this refreshing conversation….

Acting is doing.  This is one of the first lessons every actor will learn. It may very well be the fundamental tenement of acting performance. “To act means to do, so you must always have something specific to do… or you will immediately stop acting.” A Practical Handbook for the Actor Acting is also about overcoming obstacles in order to get what you want on stage and off. With the…

See what the Pros at ASC advise for creating a top-notch Virtual Audition!

A key component of our job as actors has always been overcoming obstacles. In the 1600s, Shakespearean actors overcame so many obstacles: the bubonic plague, rehearsing without the entire script, and trying to connect with each other while groundlings heckled in the audience. Now, more than 400 years later, 2020 actors are still facing similar obstacles: Covid-19, rehearsing with barking dogs and screaming kids in our home workspace and trying…

With the present state of the COVID 19 pandemic, while we are safe-at-home, one of the things actors can do… is read plays!  Reading plays is a fundamental skill for the actor. I spoke with Acting Studio Chicago Faculty Member Adrianne Cury and she advised, “There is something we can do with all this time; that is to further educate ourselves.” As an actor and playwright in training, I asked…

By Donna Simon Dunn Imagine your mind is a garden. You get to choose which seeds to plant. So why not plant seeds of positivity, joy, opportunity and success? Why not have a giant patch of dirt, void of nutrients, where your bad seeds: rejection, self-doubt, worry, go to die?  What’s stopping you from waking up every day and stepping into your purpose? Your initial response to this might be,…

Wow! January really flew by and here we are in the middle of February — and if we’re being honest, some of our New Year’s resolutions have probably flown right out of our minds — and ready to replace those resolutions, are old habits that just won’t let go. Don’t lose hope though, there’s still plenty of time to course-correct. After all, this is the start of a new year,…