Magic Age of 16

[Livy2]

Hi,

My DD will be 15 in December and is currently working hard on her GCSEs (I hope !). She's been in various different things since she was 5, TV and mainly theatre work, both professional and non-professional. She chose not to go for panto this year as she wanted to get a good start at her GCSEs and I've since found out that her school didn't grant permission to the other 'panto regulars' in her year so we haven't missed out.

My question is that once she gets to 16, are there likely to be more auditions or is it just the same as the 12-15 age bracket? She's small in height and I don't think she's going to have a massive growth spurt (in fact her sister is two years younger and there's hardly an inch between them).

If anyone has experience of what it's like once they get past 16 and therefore don't need chaperoning any more, I would be very grateful.

Thanks

[pg]

Hello.

I'm only guessing, so I don't know how useful my opinion will be but still - that's never stopped me giving it

On the positive side:
Since your DD already has a professional CV and is known to CDs, there is a good chance that they will consider her for suitable roles where she would be required to "play down" in age, especially for TV/film. However, as you know, jobs are few and far between so there will still be competition and the opportunities may not be numerous. I don't think the opportunities will necessarily become more numerous when she reaches school leaving age, it just means that employing her will be less of a headache for the production; so if she is competition with someone aged 15 for the role, she may have the advantage.

On the negative side: as she gets older, the roles she might be considered for may be taken by actors who are available full time and who are fully independent. She will start to be in competition with young looking adults. This is particularly true of theatre roles where adults are often employed to play teenagers and are sometimes employed to play children. My ds has a friend who has played a 10 year old, a 12 year old and a 15 year old in stage productions (she is a RADA graduate in her twenties who looks very, very young). I know of another young looking RADA graduate who played a teenager on TV (I think the character was 15).

In terms of non-professional roles I'm not sure it will make a lot of difference really.

[puck]

Livy2 you do realise that altough your dd turns 16 next december she will still need licencing until the last friday in June of the following year which is the official school leaving day for year 11s. Not sure if this will change at all with the new requirement to stay in eduation to 17 or 18.

[Livy2]

Hi Puck,

I didn't realise that about the licensing. Does it vary from county to county as I've seen another post where it says that the DC didn't need licenseing after they reached 16? Guess I could ask her agent. Doubt the school will let her have time out for auditions next year anyway unless there were really exceptional circumstances.

New School Image, New School Rules ! and boy, was it fun during the school holidays trying to find school skirts that come down to their knees, even M&S skirts were too short

[francescasmum]

The rule as it stands at the moment, across the country, is that they need a licence until they can officially leave school, which is 'official school leaving date', usually last Friday in June, in the year your child reaches their 16th birthday (even if their 16th birthday is after June - but before September), usually in year 11 at school.

[STEFFYSMUM]

my daughter offical school leaving date was in december and she turned 16 in december anyway so it wasnt a problem there was only a couple of dates in it but there people in her class still at school and not been asked for a liscense that i know off so dont know if its different here in scotland since turning 16 my dd has had loads of extra work but no really big parts as of yet but shes not with a big agent so not really expecting any anyway to be honest shes happy doing what shes doing for now and if anything big was to come up then its a bonus but here in scotland thats not very likley lol

[francescasmum]

I juat realised you are in Scotland and the rules I wrote are for English education.