A World Without EPAs

If EPAs were eliminated, what would you do?

If your answer is “I don’t know”, then you are existing without a strategy.

You NEED a strategy.

When you develop a strategy, you commit to taking action to turn your vision into a reality. 

In the world of auditioning, your strategy is an answer to the question, “How might I get my work in front of the people who it is for?”

Real talk: 

It might feel “hard” to go to an EPA. You have wait in a digital line for a time slot. If you don’t get that time slot, you have get up early. Really early. You have to deal with the holding room, the monitors. You have to guess about the kind of material to present based on a generic breakdown. You have to walk into a room, uninvited, and attempt to do good work while facing a person behind the table with their laptop open and their eyes down. It sucks. It feels discouraging much of the time. 

But going to an EPA is NOT the hard part. In fact, it is relatively easy. The barrier to entry is so low, it is nearly non-existent. Anyone who has a union card and is willing to show up early can do it. If you get shut out this time, the only adjustment you need to make next time is to get there earlier.  It is annoying. It is exhausting. It is frustrating, yes. But it is not the hard part.

The hard part comes when you are willing to do the emotional labor required to take a risk and seek out other ways to get your work in front of the person who your work is for. The hard part is the vulnerability that comes with daring to put your work in front of the specific person you want to see it.

And why is that so hard? Because the “yes” or the “no” comes from the person whose yes or no is real. It counts. A “yes” means that you are going to have to level up and make good on your promise of excellence. A “no” means that the decision maker doesn’t want what you are offering this time. In both cases, it is personal and it is hard. It requires significant emotional labor. It requires courage. 

 It is easier to show up at an EPA and get a “no” from someone who you have labeled as “the gatekeeper”, or “my only hope”, or “the person who hold the keys to the kingdom” or any other number of labels. That way you have something to get angry about. It’s not your fault. It’s someone else’s fault. “They” are keeping you from the decision makers. You can blame the system, not yourself, for the work you are not doing.

Even realer talk:

Blaming someone else for the work you are or are not doing is bullshit. You are too good for that. You care about this work too much to continue to function that way. 

So, I’ll ask you again: If EPAs were eliminated, what would you do?

It’s time for you to craft a strategy. You deserve that. And so do the people who need what you have to give.

(For our readers who are not professional actors, an EPA is an Equity Principal Audition. These kinds of auditions are often held to fulfill a theatre’s or producer’s contractual audition requirements.)