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[0:00] Jeffrey Dreisbach: In this episode of Casting Actors Cast, we'll talk about some very cool resources that you should be aware of. Staying current with what's happening in the arts community and with tools that can help actors is a great way to feel connected. Let's put the power of information to good work on this episode of Casting Actors Cast.

[0:25] Jeffrey Dreisbach: Welcome to Casting Actors Cast, the podcast and video for actors. Each week, we provide practical, useful information to advance your craft and your career in the business of show. And now, here's your host, casting director, Jeffrey Dreisbach.

[0:41] Jeffrey Dreisbach: Well, hello, and welcome to today's episode of Casting Actors Cast. I'm Jeffrey Dreisbach. I'm a casting partner with Pat McCorkle at McCorkle Casting in New York. How are you? Hope you're having a good day. I'm having a really good day. And it's about time I wanted to do this episode for some time now, and that is just go over those organizations, those places that are really worth knowing about. Just giving you some information in the hopes that you could find these perhaps useful for yourself, but also just give you an awareness of what's happening out there, what's going on out there. So I thought this would be a fun time to put together this list and share that with you today.

[1:21] Jeffrey Dreisbach: But first, this is that moment of the podcast where I get to say thank you so much for tuning in to Casting Actors Cast. I am so excited that we're, oh gosh, I think close to 85,000 downloads of the podcast, and I couldn't be more delighted. People from all over the world are tuning into this podcast, these podcast videos, and it is so exciting. I continue to just simply want to share my information, information about my experience as well as what's happening out there in the industry so that you can feel much more comfortable and much more confident as a performer.

[2:00] Jeffrey Dreisbach: By the way, you can get more information if you like by going to the website castingactorscast.com. That's casting actors cast, all one word dot com. And there you're gonna find Jeff's Jots, and those are show notes corresponding to each of the episode. So you can have, you know, some pretty cool cheat sheet material as you follow along on these episodes. But I think there's also some inspirational stuff that having with you, I've heard from folks that say they really appreciate having a single page of notes from each of the episodes so that they can review that at their leisure.

[2:34] Jeffrey Dreisbach: Also, if you fill out that form on the web, the landing page, if you fill that out, it's called um uh what is it called? Oh, it's called uh dive into the talent pool. I've only been saying that for 238 friggin' episodes. I suddenly went blank. This is very concerning to me. I'm just kidding. So it is called Dive Into the Talent Pool. You just simply fill out that form, and that's gonna open up some freebies for you. By the way, I don't do anything with your email address. It's your name and your email address. I might on occasion send out an announcement about an upcoming episode, but I don't sell your information, I don't spam you, I don't chew up your bandwidth, anything like that. I just simply like to know that there are people out there who are listening to the podcast and partaking of these goodies that I'm offering.

[3:25] Jeffrey Dreisbach: So one offering is a free book. It's a 100-page PDF book on doing voiceover work. It's called Conversation Pieces Out of the Studio, the voice of a Workshop for Professional actors. I wrote it a handful of years ago, and it's all about doing voiceover work. It's sort of a workshop in manual form. I think you're gonna find that very useful, especially if that's an area that you're kind of interested in going into. Additionally, there are um uh some videos, uh, one video in particular that I want to draw your attention to that is up on that page after you fill out the form. And that is all about um what casting doesn't want you to know. Casting secrets. And it's a 20-minute video, it's a private video, it's exclusive to you if you fill out the form. And I think you're gonna find that really helpful and really useful. I'm hearing from people all of the time talking about how much they find that to be valuable.

[4:23] Jeffrey Dreisbach: So if you have a spare 20 minutes and you want to watch me on my set talking about these casting secrets, I think you're gonna find that pretty helpful. And finally, here's my shout out to my good friends at Actors Connection, Colleen and Tony. Thank you so much for the support. They promote the podcast and I promote them on my podcast videos, and I just really enjoy participating with the programs that they have there. I've done many workshops and classes with Actors Connection, and I just love it. And it's actorsconnection.com slash New York. All of their training is virtual. That means that you can be working no matter where you are. You could be working with anyone, anywhere rather in the world.

And so uh actorsconnection.com/slash new york. These are working professionals, agents, managers, casting directors, just working professionals who are gonna give you really good information about what's happening now. So that's my shout out to my friends at Actors Connection.

[5:25] Jeffrey Dreisbach: All right, so I'd love to jump into this list. I don't want it to be a tedious list. Um, so you know, I kind of forgot my clown nose and tap shoes, so I can't really make this, you know, super entertaining, but I did want to put this list together for you. And by the way, you can go to Jeff's Jots and you can get this list to take a look at it as well. But it's a handful of really great resources and information that I thought would be really helpful. And the first on my list is a really amazing organization called Students Live. Um, and it's also their subdivision is a passport to Broadway. Um, Amy Weinstein put together this training program for young people, and it has been um really uh just highly praised for what they're doing, and it's pretty uh exceptional. And I've been lucky enough to participate in a few of their workshops by giving them feedback for their students.

[6:20] Jeffrey Dreisbach: But um, since the year 2000 Students Live award-winning live interactive educational program has attracted over 350,000 participants from as far away as Indonesia, Guam, the UK, Italy, Brazil, China, South Korea. And so this is all about getting information about what it is to be a professional and what it is to be on Broadway. And so bringing Broadway talent to help some of the training. Um, and some of these organizations then take their students and bring them to New York for an immersive experience. And this is just kind of the coolest thing I've ever heard of. And uh Amy is just like a force of nature anyway. So I just wanted to give a shout out. So it's called A Students Live. It's a Broadway educational program, really bringing young people into the fold of wanting uh of giving uh Broadway style training uh and really excellent uh caliber of uh training and working with young people.

So thank you, uh Amy, for allowing me to share that a little bit about that. And so you can always find out any more that you might want to about the program by going uh to um let's see, the website is studentslive.net, studentslive.net. Um and that's one. That's one of them.

[7:44] Jeffrey Dreisbach: So let's move down the list, some other training that you might be interested in taking a part in. And I'm not being paid by any of these people to s to talk about them. Um I have on occasion been invited to teach at some of these places, and I would only want you to find out information about these places. In other words, I'm not on the dull here. I'm I'm this isn't this is not like I'm being sponsored. This is just some really cool places that I think are worth taking a look at. Um, and some training uh that is worthwhile to see what's happening and going on out there. Um, some of it's virtual, many of it's live. But for those of you who are not in the New York Greater Metropolitan Area and can't get to Manhattan, you might want to check out some of the online stuff uh that I'm gonna be mentioning here.

[8:35] Jeffrey Dreisbach: One is T Schreiber Studio. Terry Schreiber has been around for a just a long time. Um, and he has just put together an exceptional acting training program. Um there's conservatories, there's individual classes, and they're located at 151 West 26th Street. And uh tshryber.org is the website. I encourage you to uh if you're looking for some classes, if you're looking for some um smaller classes and some personal attention, the T Schreiber Studio has been uh known and very, very well established here in New York for a long period of time. I recommend them highly.

[9:14] Jeffrey Dreisbach: Another slightly different organization, but nevertheless, really, really helpful for those professionals who are interested in taking their work to the next level. And so, what I mean by that is these are people who already have some kind of professional training, some college credits perhaps, maybe they've gotten some professional credits as well. It's called One on One, NYC. One on one. They're located at 34 West 27th Street. You know, I like one on one a lot because there are um casting directors, there are agents, managers, there's all kinds of people who are really have a vested interest in improving and helping actors take their careers to the next level. So I wanted to put my my shout out to one on one uh in New York.

[10:04] Jeffrey Dreisbach: So another resource that I think is useful to take a look at is Theater World. Theater World magazine has been around a long time. But if you um are serious about your career, if you really want to stay informed and feel part of a community, going to Theater World Online is a great sort of do you know how my dad every morning he used to go out and get the morning paper, right? And he would go grab the paper and he'd bring it inside and he'd sit there with his morning coffee and he'd read the paper, and that would start out his day. Well, do you know what? If you get into the habit of going on Theater World, going online every morning, just making it just the part of your day, you're gonna really find out about what's happening in New York.

All kinds of really excellent articles. Um, there's a lot of promotional stuff as well, but I just like it so much. And I just wanted to encourage you, if you haven't looked at it for a while, it might be worth your time. Theater World magazine is now online, and I think it's really a worthwhile resource for you to check out.

[11:07] Jeffrey Dreisbach: Of course, next you probably know this was coming is my good friends at actorsconnection.com slash New York. Um, Actors Connection has been around for a very, very long period of time, and they've really dedicated themselves to helping um sometimes newer actors or actors that are just getting back into it after being away for a while, but they also have very excellent professional training. They're doing all of their classes online now. Now the other studios that I mentioned are not. Um some are online, some classes or individual programs might be online, but most of them are coming back to a live um situation. Actors Connection is staying virtual. That means that if you're anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, you can go ahead and check out what Actors Connection has to offer.

Really interesting courses and classes, and I'm excited because my participation with them has been nothing but rewarding. Um, really exceptional. And I definitely I uh I don't want to dangle this carrot too much, but I have actually brought in many, many of those students into um audition opportunities that we've had at our casting office. Again, I'm not trying to dangle a carrot because it's kind of it uh you cannot guarantee anybody anything as far as training is concerned. I love teaching, and I happen to love this organization as well as the other organizations that I mentioned.

[12:32] Jeffrey Dreisbach: Now, here's another resource that I think uh is worthwhile looking into, and that is Lincoln Center Theater Library. If you haven't really heard about this, man, oh man. So Lincoln Center has a theater library, and it is uh it is a dream. And there's all kinds of research that you can do in terms of scripts, materials, biographies. But the coolest part and my view about Lincoln Center Theater Library is that they have archived just about every Broadway show. They've had a so early on, they started with a single camera setup. So there were the production values were not like any huge thing. But every production, you can now go and watch the original Broadway production of these shows. Is that cool or what? So if you go to the Lincoln Center Theater Library, become a member, join up, do whatever you gotta do, but then you can do whatever research you need and find out about these shows that you might not have heard of.

[13:37] Jeffrey Dreisbach: You can find out about shows you have heard of. Um, you can go check out um all kinds of really great archival material, and that's at the Lincoln Center Theater Library. Now, other resources that I want to share that I think are really useful is that our office oftentimes, more often than not, uses Pearl Studios. They're located at 500 Eighth Avenue. Pearl Studios is where many Broadway productions rehearse. There are many classes, there are acting classes. So this is just their studios. They rent out the studios to these independent folks who will come in and use that studio space. But if you don't know about Pearl Studios, it really is worth doing some investigating. I've often um I love just walking down the halls of Pearl Studios because on one side you're gonna hear a Broadway show in rehearsal, and then on the other side you're gonna hear a tap class going on, and then auditions for theaters.

So many of the regional theaters across the country that cast in New York will come and use Pearl Studios as a resource. So there's other studios that are out there. Uh Pearl Studios happens to be one of my favorites. Um, but there are many others. But I just wanted to let you know that there's this organ, this place called Pearl Studios. If you haven't heard about it, it's worthwhile looking into. All right, moving on from there. This organization has been around starting in the early days of when there was a breakdown. That means when there was a job that was available. This guy who started breakdown services would literally hand deliver the breakdowns to agents all over New York City. Um, and now it is completely electronic and breakdown services, also known as actors' access, which is a component of breakdown services, um, is all done virtually.

And it is an amazing place. If you don't know about actors' access, you must get yourself registered. You must upload your picture and resume. There's a free service that I would suggest you start with. I this is my personal opinion. I wouldn't go ahead and start putting money down for their additional um services, just getting used to being in breakdown, being part of their database, but also taking a look at the jobs that are available. They only put on jobs that are paid gigs for actors, by the way. So you're not going to see classes, you're not going to see non-paying jobs. These are professional opportunities for professional actors, professional performers. So that's breakdown services, actors access.

So you might want to go online and check that out. You can simply Google that. It's really an easy find. Okay, moving on from there. Um, I know a lot of people have uh might not be aware that you get a photographer who takes your headshot, and then you need duplications of your headshot. Maybe you want to get, you know, a hundred headshots, a hundred eight by tens, uh black uh color photographs uh that the photographer has taken. Well, but where do you do that? Well, Modern Age is the name of the photo lab. It's at 555 8th Avenue in New York City. And this is a photo laboratory, and they will do multiple duplications of your headshot. They'll take, and they can just, I'm honest to God, Modern Age has been fantastic.

They can do just about anything as far as promotional material. So if you're looking to get a postcard made, for example, let's say you're in a show, or let's say you're in a workshop or whatever. There's promotional material. But if you need inexpensive duplication of photographic material, Modern Age is definitely my recommendation. Uh, moving on from there, the new drama bookshop. You know, it was closed for a while. Drama Bookshop was just famous and well known for many, many years, but it is now reopened thanks to Lynn Manuel Miranda, um, who's put some money into it. And the address is 266 West 39th Street. So if you're visiting New York, you must make it a point to go to the drama bookshop.

This is where all of the latest publications of plays, uh musicals, there's all kinds of material that's there for sale. You can get lists of agents and managers, you can get all kinds of things, just all dedicated to the performer. That's the drama bookshop 266. Wow. Drama Bookshop is at 266 West 39th Street. That little sibilant S is just showing up today, isn't it? All right, let's move on from there. Um, and this is um I think so useful if you are interested in getting some voiceover work and maybe you don't need somebody to pre-package your voiceover stuff. Um, there are those organizations that are out there. I don't honestly, frankly, don't know enough about them to make any kind of recommendation.

So you have to sort of just trust your own instincts on that. But there is an excellent sound studio located in Midtown, Manhattan, and I just wanted to put my shout out, CDM Studios, CDM Studios. So they you can get some studio time, you can have a professional engineer, you could be recording um in these studios. Um, they are um a Grammy winning uh sound designers. Um, and so they are really the top notch place. Uh Charles D. Montebello is the owner of CDM Studios, 639th Avenue. So if you're interested in getting some recording work done, um they can also help put together some voiceover material for you. Um, and I've used that studio. I've actually been hired, and when I was doing voiceovers, I did a lot of work there.

And I one quick side story, if I could share this with you, is I go into the studio one day, and I see the Grammy Award that they've won. And they won it for Jon Stewart's book, History of the World. And so Jon Stewart recorded that book there. And I thought, well, that's just too cool. And then as I was walking out from my session that day, I came downstairs, and who was coming up? Oh my gosh. Hillary Clinton recording her book at CDM Studios. So I'm like, wow, smell me. I'm in a studio with these like famous people. Anyway, CDM Studios, you might want to check it out. All right, let's go on to some additional resources that I hope you're finding this kind of fun. I'm enjoying just sort of sharing this.

These are places that I've had some real personal um uh what's the word? Some real personal affection for and have had some dealt with many, many times. And so I was excited to have this opportunity to share this stuff. So let's move on from there. And um, Internet Movie Database, IMDB, IMDB.com. Anything film and television, you want to find out about who is casting, who's the director, as much information as you care to find out. Internet Movie Database is sort of the granddaddy primary source for all things film and television. Do look at it, do check it out. You're gonna find it really, I think useful just to stay current with what's taking place. Um, and you might want to IMDB McCorkle casting.

You can see what we're working on, the kind of an insider thing there. Um, but it's a really an excellent resource for actors as well. If you love somebody's acting and you think, gosh, I'm a I have I'm a similar quality in terms of this the style of acting, you can look them up. Find out who that person is, find out and study what they've done. It's really kind of a cool place that you can get a lot of information in a very, very economical short period of time. It's free, but there's also a paid version, IMDB Pro. I don't necessarily recommend that you should just jump right into getting the pro unless you feel so inclined. I apologize, there was a phone going off just then. So let's move on from there.

Uh IBDB, Internet Broadway Database, is all things Broadway and off-Broadway. So you're gonna see um actors, productions, shows. So if you want to do some research, get a little bit of history. Who played that role when it was in an original form? Those are really cool resources to kind of check out as well. IBDB, Internet Broadway Database. Okay, moving on from there. You might not be aware of this, but Actors Equity Association, the union for stage performers, um, is working on, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I might be wrong about this, but they've just opened up a new members portal with all kinds of resources and all kinds of really good information. So Actors Equity, the uh uh the website, actorsequity.org. Um, there's a new member portal.

So I would suggest taking a look at that. It's also about membership, it's also about theaters across the country. You can get all kinds of great resource material at actorsequity.org. Now moving on from there, SAGAfter.org. There's all kinds of industry resources as well. SAG and AFTRA gives you all kinds of information about what are the minimums for acting in a movie, for example. Whatever the budget of the movie is, there are set standards for how much money you can be making. But there's also just great resources in terms of franchised agencies. Those are the kinds of pieces of information that every professional actor should be able to have access to. Really, really easy. Okay, moving on from there, Simplyscripts.

Simplyscripts.com. Those are TV and film scripts. So if you really love a particular television show, if you want to read a pilot of a television show, if you want to just do some basic research, if you're looking for some really cool scenes of some relatively obscure or unknown film, Simplyscripts.com is a great place where you can read entire film scripts. This is just invaluable for actors. Maybe you're looking for a monologue. Maybe you just want pilots that didn't go, but some of that material is so rich, it's so good. So simplyscripts.com is a place that I recommend for that. And then finally, my last resource for voiceover work, voice123.com. Um, voice123.com. There are um this is similar to, in my opinion, this is very similar to actors access.

There is a paid version, blah, blah, blah. But if you're interested in doing voiceover work, you can upload your voiceover demo. You can make yourself available for work opportunities. I know many, many actors who have found you know gainful employment gigs through voice123.com. So if you're interested in doing voiceover work, that's a place that I would recommend you at least know about and check out. I said that that was the last one, and the one I didn't have on my list in front of me, but I'm going to share with you is Mandy.com. For those of you who are international, Mandy.com is also productions that are taking place all over the world. So you can find out what's shooting in perhaps your area.

You can get job uh resources and opportunities. If you want to be a PA on a film, if you want to be doing background work, and you have to kind of go through it carefully and scrutinize it thoroughly. But I think that uh mandy.com is also a really excellent resource for job opportunities, but also just good general information about what's shooting, what's taking place. That's Mandy.com. Wow. Whoo, I need a bath. Okay. Even though you might not think there's enough time in the day to get your stuff done, I understand that. I feel that way almost on a daily basis. But maybe then it's time to just use this list as a sort of a resource opportunity. Making sure you're filling up your time as a professional by resourcing each of these pieces of information can really be helpful.

So rather than hopelessly Google searching your way to crazy Town. This might just be the ticket to keep you moving in the right direction for classes, studios, scripts, photography, information, and connection. So please let me know if these choices have helped by dropping me a line and perhaps sharing the resources you might know. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Jeffrey Dreisbach. This is Casting Actors Cast. It's been great having you in our talent pool today. Your support means the world to us. So please consider sharing, liking, and reviewing this episode wherever you jump in. I'm Megan Grace Martinez. Thanks.