Acting

Hello all.   We have now posted the video of last week's first ever On Stage With RB, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Richard "RB" Botto.   We opened 1,000 spots for this exclusive Stage 32 Next Level Webinar.  At the peak, 989 Stage 32 members from 77 countries were in attendance!  Thanks to all who showed up and asked such amazing questions.   All in all, RB spoke for 2 hours including a 20 minute tutorial on how to best utilize Stage 32 to create meaningful contacts, find work, post projec...

In the winter of 2009, I drove down a desolate freeway in the middle of the Mojave Desert, and watched the sun slowly rise above the golden hills in the distance. I was overwhelmed with emotion. It had been over three years since my first audition in Hollywood, and I had just finished shooting my first feature film. I made $100 a day to play a jerk/jock who gets brutally slaughtered in the funhouse of a carnival…and it was one of the best experiences of my life…hands down. And as I drove awa...

I'm thrilled that so many of you found my first blog Making It worthwhile. Today I bring you some Building Blocks of Success for the Theatre Scene. You can use these whether you’re based in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, London, Ireland, Australia….anywhere in the world. Now get out and make things happen! 1)The agent/manager dilemmas? First, I'm more of a believer of an agent or manager coming to you at the right time; whether it be through a friend, them seeing you in a sho...

My job has always begun in front of the camera at “action” and ended with my director’s call of “cut,” but I was nudged out of my comfortable actor’s niche when I stumbled into the big, broad world of film production. I’ll back up a little. My modeling career began at age one-and-a-half, by age six I had moved on to Ford Models and the NYC stage in off Broadway musicals, and experiencing my first opportunity for the big screen in Mr. Nanny with Hulk Hogan. In 2010, the year I graduated c...

The call came in. Got the part.  Playing a character named Jerry Catone.  Wow. Weeks of auditioning – improvisation at the first audition, going on vacation, and then giving it my all in my call back in front of Jennifer Peri - and it all comes down to the call.  Got the part. Then the flurry of phone calls came in from every department.  Hair and makeup called.  They wanted me to grow my sideburns long because it’s a timepiece from the 1970’s.  Even before I knew I landed the ro...

In publishing, you hear the word NO a lot. From your own critique partners and beta readers --"NO, this scene doesn't work." From agents -- "NO, this isn't right for me to represent." From editors and publishers -- "NO, we don't have room in our line for this."  Sometimes, NO is a good thing. For example, when your scene could use a little more work or when you're career is heading down the wrong path that isn't right for you anyway. But sometimes, NO has nothing to do with your book and your...

I got on set and we improved all the scenes. I got to work with Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman & Nikolaj Coster Waldau. Then I booked the film called The Tomb, now changed to Escape Plan, with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those were the three films I did at the beginning of the year, and then summertime I went back in California to be with my soon-to-be wife. Then I went back to New Orleans to be present for more auditions and I booked a film called Aztec Warrior. That was amazi...

I grew up in the Bay Area, in Oakland. I lived on Fruitvale, so homage to the film Fruitvale Station, it’s like my hometown. It got pretty bad in my area when I was 10, so we moved to a better area — a safer area — in Dublin, California. I was there until I was 15, and then I moved to Omaha, Nebraska. California to Nebraska, can you believe that? Everyone was like “Why did you go to Omaha?” and I said, “You know, just to change up the scenery, why not?” In all honestly, what really happened...

The professional performer has to learn so much, so fast. Nimble doesn't begin to describe how we have to move through our entire careers. You better be fast. It's why they pay us the big bucks when we do get those very precious network TV jobs or feature films or commercials. I got paid a disproportionate day rate for a network comedy in 2012, and I just got the same bloated check again in 2013, because it aired on the network again in prime time. Double pay for doing nothing. I just be myself...

     Recently, I wrote a critically-acclaimed novel, The Drifts (Coach House Books, 2010), and have been staging excerpts with two major New York Theater festivals. Bully for me that the Globe & Mail called the book “magnificent”; audiences have said very nice things (“hilarious and heartbreaking…stricken and dangerously poetic”, etc.) and I’ve gotten some nice press. Unfortunately, one festival got wind that another fest was announcing my participation and selling tickets. The first (you know w...