MASS MAILING

I am not a big fan of mass mailings. I think that sending your pic and resume to every single casting director and representative in town is unprofessional and pointless. It also can contribute to ongoing frustrations you may feel about the business. For example, if you send out 300 pictures and resumes to all the casting directors and reps in town, it will cost you approximately $700 - that is too much to spend on a project that most likely will yield nothing. You will find that some casting directors only cast children's shows. It is a waste of both time and money to include them in a mass mailing. It is best to be specific with your mailing.

TARGETED MAILING

You should only do a mailing when you have something specific and important to say. A general letter stating, "Here I am, an actor looking for work or respresentation, blah blah", is neither specific nor important.

An appropriate time for a mailing is when you are doing a show, or are in a film, or have specific news to report. You should send a mailing to people who would be interested in seeing your work and who could possibly generate future work. These could be Casting Directors who cast shows using your "type", or any representative who you may have met through classmates and/or working actor friends (more on this in ACT III).

The key to a mailing is research. Most representatives are very specific in the areas that they work in. Find representatives who work in the specific areas that interest you.

I also suggest researching the casting directors, find out what they cast on TV, Film and Theatre, and then submit yourself accordingly. After doing your research into regional theaters, for example, hopefully you have located a few theatres that are doing shows with roles that you are right for. It is best to focus your mailing on the casting directors and perhaps the artistic directors of those theaters, telling them that you are particularly interested in auditioning for a specific role in one of their upcoming productions.