Sunday, June 12, 2011

Casting Agencies and Audition Resources Online


Since I've been sending out headshots I thought I'd share a list of some of the major casting agencies in the Washington, DC area.  You should never be required to pay a fee to register with an agency; casting agencies make their money from casting projects.

Most area actors say that personal contact is still the best way to generate interest. Check every agent or casting directors website for open calls and meet with them in person.  Check their website to find out whether they prefer an open call or a simple submission.  Most of these handle union, non-union, and voiceovers; some also handle print, live appearances, and other kinds of work.

Note that some of these take email submissions, some want snail mail, and some take both.

Erica Arvold Casting 
416 E Main St
Suite 206
Charlottesville, VA 22902
http://arvoldcasting.com/actors/

Betsy Royall Casting
6247 Falls Road,
Baltimore, MD 21209
Email: betsy@betsycoaching.com
http://www.betsycasting.com

Carlyn Davis Casting 
Attn: New Talent
124 E. Broad Street Unit C-2
Falls Church, Va. 22046.
Tel: 703-532-1900
Fax: 703-532-1950
http://www.carlyndavis.com/

Central Casting (DC)  (Call for instructions on how to submit)
623 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E.
Washington, DC 20003
Tel: 202-547-6300
Fax: 202-547-8196
http://www.centralcastingusa.com/

Independent Casting Services
Carol W Davis LLC
3950 Elm Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21211
Tel: 410-467-7770
Tel: 410-949-4148 (mobile)
http://www.IndependentCastingServices.com

Kimberly Skyrme Casting
Washington, DC Office (There's also an office in NYC)
4313 Sheridan Street
University Park, MD 20782
Tel: 301-927-4462

Baltimore Office
1200 South Conkling Street
Suite 427
Baltimore
21224

http://www.kimberlyskyrmecasting.com
Email: KimberlySkyrmeCasting@gmail.com
An up and comer, Kimberly Skyrme cast two seasons of the Netflix hit series House of Cards and is currently casting films.  Her staff is well organized and she throws a wide net when looking for actors. Works from time to time with Stonehenge Casting below.

Pat Moran and Associates
3500 Boston Street
Suite 425
Baltimore, MD 21224
http://www.patmoranandassociates.com
Email: patmorantalent@gmail.com
Pat Moran and Associates won a 2012 Emmy for casting the film Game Change, and cast many of the major film and TV projects filming in the area, including the TV series VEEP with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, before the show returned to California.

Stonehenge Casting
Baltimore
https://www.stonehengecasting.com
A free profile site associated with Bjorn Munson's Team Jabberwocky in Baltimore, which for many years hosted the Stonehenge Auditions.  Working with Kimberly Skyrme Casting on some projects.

Studio Center
Studio Center Corporation
161 Business Park Dr.
Virginia Beach, VA 23462
Tel: 866-515-2111 or 757-286-3080
Fax: 757-622-0583
Email through their website
http://www.studiocenter.com/on-camera-talent.aspx

Taylor Royall
6247 Falls Road Baltimore, MD 21209
Phone: 410-828-6900
Fax:410-828-1281
Email:  agents@taylorroyall.com
http://www.taylorroyall.com

T.H.E. Artist Agency  (Print Ads and Runway Models)
1207 Potomac St., NW
Georgetown, DC 20007
Tel: 202-342-0933
Fax: 202-342-6471
http://www.theartistagency.com

OTHER SOURCES FOR AUDITION NOTICES

The Virginia Film Office
http://www.film.virginia.org
Area actors have found some good jobs there and Southern Virginia has had a string of major Hollywood movies shooting in the area, including Spielberg’s Lincoln.

The Pittsburgh Film Office
http://pghfilm.org
Century Building
130  7th Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

The DC Film Alliance Calendar and Listserv
http://dcshorts.com/resources/
The DC Film Alliance/DC Shorts was created in part to increase communication among the local film and media community. Two excellent tools to help with this are the DC Film Alliance’s calendar and their listserv, found at the link above.

The Mid-Atlantic Union Talent Hotline (MAUTH) If you’re a union actor in the area, send an email to the list moderator Don Hagen (DonHagen@aol.com) and ask to join. His job notifications reach more than 400 union actors in the Washington/Baltimore markets.

Production Company Websites A good strategy for advancing your acting career is to target 2-3 companies that produce the kind of films in which you want to appear.  Let’s face it, any production company that’s going to turn out a professional product and take care of you before, during, and after the shoot is going to have a website and/or a listing on IMDb. Look at their creative team and what information they give on past productions.  Follow and build a relationship.


MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZATIONS
Membership in acting organizations can be a great source of audition notices as well as training and networking events, making them well worth the membership fee for the career advancing opportunities they provide.

Dragonuk Connects
For filmmakers, this is the largest publicly searchable casting database in the region, covering a broad range of acting talent, most of it non-union.
http://www.dragonukconnects.com

The Actors' Center
A long-standing area resource, the Actor's Center emails members a daily "Hotline" of job openings.
http://www.actorscenter.org

Women in Film and Video-Washington, DC
http://www.wifv.org

Women in Film and Video of Maryland 
http://www.wifvmd.org

Television, Internet and Video Association
http://www.tivadc.org


SUBMISSION SITES

Actors Access
http://www.actorsaccess.com
This is the main service to get job notices. Breakdown Services also offers scripts/sides and Showfax for taped audition submissions on the same site.

Agency Pro
In the extended D C area (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlottesville, etc), there are 8-9 casting agencies/directors using Agency Pro software to host their actor headshot and resume files.  Actors can set up either a free basic account or upgrade to a paid account. Most area actors in a recent survey by Brian Dragonuk, however, responded that setting up an Agency Pro account got them little more than emailed sales pitches from the casting agencies for paid services, classes, workshops and headshots. The one exception was Erica Arvold Casting in Charlottesville, VA, http://www.arvold.com, which does send out quite a few general notices for actual paying jobs.

Backstage Magazine online
A subscription to the online version includes a casting calls link to thousands of film, TV, and commercial projects all across the country.
Backstage.com
Casting Networks
http://home.castingnetworks.com/Join.aspx
The Diane Heery Agency in Philadelphia uses them and quite a few NYC-based casting directors also use them so members do get audition notices. Few DC-area actors report booking a job, however, even after multiple submissions.

Casting Frontier 
http://www.castingfrontier.com
Starting to show up in several major casting directors offices. Appears to be a main source of video auditions for markets like LA and NYC out of its local offices.

IMDbPro
If you have a subscription (and you should) film projects often turn up here via the casting link on the menu bar.
IMDbPro.com 

NYCastings 
http://www.nycastings.com
This site was mentioned by several area actors with mixed results for NYC jobs.

800Casting 
Sylvia Hutson Hutson Talent Agency http://www.hutsontalentagency.com in Portsmouth, VA, and Maultsby Model & Talent Agency http://www.maultsbytalent.com/ in Wilmington, NC, use this sight and their actors reportedly do well. Useful especially for the general southeast market.


THEATER CASTING

Playbill

Actors Equity Casting Call 
http://www.actorsequity.org/castingcall/castingcallhome.asp

The DC Theatre Listserv
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DC_Theatre
Like MAUTH below, this is another Yahoo Group listserv open to theater actors,  directors, stage managers, designers, producers, etc. General news and audition notices.http://www.actorsaccess.com

2 comments:

  1. This is some great information. I recently relocated to Maryland and this will be very helpful to me. THANKS.

    Mike Twisler

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad to have you in the area! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete

I will get back to you shortly!