As an actor your resume should ideally be a one or two page list of your significant theatrical experience—stage roles, training, education— plus your physical description and contact information which will help the directors decide if you should be cast. You need not list everything you have done in your career. You only need to emphasize on the most important roles and may be other performances that had some weight. An actor’s resume should list his physique (height, hair color, eye color…), his credits (projects he has done), his contact info (usually the agent or manager), and his skills (sports, languages, hobbies).
A typical 8½” x 10” page actor resume should ideally have the following eight ingredients and preferably in this order:
1. The resume should logically start with your name in boldface and center. Also, you could consider adding “actor” or comparable descriptive terms such as “actor-singer-dancer” to assist the search engines.
2. Beneath your name, also centered, list your professional affiliations such as SAG, AFTRA, Equity. If you’re not a member of a union, simply skip this entry.
3. Give your physical description—height, weight, hair and eye color, and vocal range. If you’re a singer, specify the notes.
4. List contact information—your phone (or answering service) number, email address. If you have an agent, put his/her name here under “Represented by….” Consider using an answering service or a phone company’s voice mail. And get into the habit of checking it regularly.)
5. Experience section of your resume could be subdivided into “film,” “television,” “stage,” “voice overs,” “commercials,” and “other” such as trade shows, theme parks, or cruise ships. You’ll want to devise a table to organize the categories in columns.
Column One: Name of play or movie.
Column Two: Role you played.
Column Three: Name and location of the theatre, the director’s name
6. Training section will specify your training in acting, voice, dance, workshops, scene study, where you studied and with whom.
7. Special talents. List your special skills such as juggling, acrobatics, pantomime, dance, stage combat, ability to speak foreign languages, dialects, and the like.
8. Theatrical awards and honors.
Dos and Don’ts
DO
- Print or staple your resume to the back of your headshot. Use only one staple in the upper left corner.
- If you are stapling, trim your resume to fit the headshot. Cut you resume – 8×10.
- Make sure the contact information on the back is up-to-date, and that you have an email address.
- If you have a lot of projects, it’s better to list the best ones.
- Create an email address just for your acting resume.
- Emphasize on your education and training to add strength to your resume.
DON’T
- Never lie about your experience.
- Don’t make up special skills or write things down just so to fill in the special skill area.
- Don’t use a resume that is larger that 8 ½ x 11. If possible stick to the fundamental size of one page resume.
- Don’t use a resume that is more than one page.
- Don’t staple reviews or clippings to your resume. They just get in the way.
- Never put your social security number on public documents such as your résumé. Identity theft is a major problem and the thieves are damned industrious.
- Your resume should be well readable by others, so take care of the appropriate font size.