Best agencies for musical theatre/cruiseship work

[fli]

Hello. I Would be grateful for some advice on the best agencies to contact for musical theatre work or cruise ship dancer type of work.

[francescasmum]

If you look on 'The Stage' website, they are always advertising for cruise/holiday entertainment. You have to join 'the Stage' to read more details about each job but it is free to do so and pretty simple. I just had a look and the top one is for cruise agency, a little further down there is an advert for Disney cruise line and another for 'fun in the sun'. So that might be a good place to start.

[riverdancefan]

the website is sparse but she has a good facebook page and casts for cruise lines too - take a look, plus as F's Mum says - plenty in the Stage - no need for an agent - most are open audtions...

good luck

https://www.facebook.com/debbieobrienca ... 8&filter=3

[fli]

Thanks for the info and I just subscribed to the Stage today, but what about musical theatre ? I have heard that if you have an agent you will benefit from more "exclusive" auditions rather than auditioning with hundreds of others ?

[pg]

I am sure that it is true that you would benefit from more "exclusive" auditions if you had an agent.

Quite a number of agents have clients who work in musical theatre without being musical theatre specialists, however, if you want to find agents who regularly have clients in musical theatre shows there are a couple of things you could do:

1. Work your way through Contacts and check on agents' websites to see what appears in their "news" feeds to see what clients have been recently cast in
2. Look at cast lists for musicals and then go to Spotlight to see who represents them

Most agents will want to see you in something before they will agree to represent you though...

[fli]

Thanks Pg, what a good idea ! Will start looking at musical cast lists.

[paulears]

PGs final comment is the most important. A good agent will get you work. To get a good agent, they need to see you as marketable - so will only be interested when they see you in a show. If you get an agent without being in something, then just think about how good and useful they are? Will they be able to get you jobs if they've never seen you work? Many people start with a poor agent who gets them some jobs and then the good agent sees them and knows they can get them more work, which will make them more money too. That's what agents are about - seeing talent that will make them money. Simply having an agent means nothing whatsoever nowadays - having a good one is when it matters. Good agents will also dump you if your reputation suffers. The good ones will come to see you perform, sometimes with no notice, possibly even bringing clients with them, knowing that they'll see something good. Your agent will tell you what to do to make yourself more marketable. Being on the books for casual enquiries - I need a dancer, looking about 21, slim, and dark might get you a few corporate jobs where quality isn't that important - fitting the costumes is probably more critical. This kind of agent is not going to get you a role in Les Mis. Too many people think having an agent is the key. Getting to the invited auditions is by being known already - so a route rarely open to anyone who's a newcomer. However, an audition is just that - a chance to show, in just a few seconds what you're about. Only yesterday a holiday centre near me had auditions for a full time staff singer who could dance. They did the auditions in the centre with the holidaymakers (mainly older people) milling about. One girl did two audition songs, an up tempo number, and a ballad. Both were stopped after the first verse, then all the people had to hang around for an hour for the dance part. What they didn't know was they were being watched in the break. The girl that got it was the one who spent all her time simply chatting and laughing with the old folks, a genuinely nice person with a personality. The ones who avoided the holidaymakers, or spent time titivating themselves in the loo, or telling the others what they'd done and how experienced they were didn't.

On the news this morning were some unemployed people fresh out of dance college working on a farm - because getting a job dancing was soooooo hard.

If you have friends who are in the industry as performers you'll find the posh plumb jobs squashed in between real rubbish ones, and until you've got experience of this kind of thing, it's unlikely that you will have the right contacts and move in the right circles to get the special jobs. The Stage is a great place to find out about the ship work, but there's no real shortcut to doing loads of open auditions with the 30 second opportunity!

[francescasmum]

There is an opportunity posted on talent Circle today!