Houston-Austin Actors Conservatories

It has been a busy year for the Austin Actors’ Conservatory and we’re only halfway through.

The AAC started 2014 with a well-attended viewing party for the SAG Awards in January. Lots of networking and some great door prizes made for a fun night. One of the celebrity attendees was Robert Walden, whose 40-year-plus career includes hits in both television and film. Highlights include the smash series Lou Grant, the show Brothers and the films All The President's Men, and The Out-of-Towners, to name a few. He came to the viewing party to see his co-star from the series Happily Divorced, Rita Moreno, receive the Life Achievement Award on the TV broadcast. Clips from the show including Walden were aired during the broadcast.

AAC Chair Pamela Weaver suggested that Walden present a Master Acting Class for our membership, and he graciously accepted. In April, 14 AAC union members got to work directly with Walden as he presented exercises designed to help actors quickly develop a personal connection with their acting partners. This was followed by scene work and very insightful critiques. One of the auditors to the class summed up the experience by saying, “I learned more from auditing this one class than I have from all the acting classes I’ve taken.”

In May, the conservatory presented a panel focusing on Working in a "Right-to-Work" State, describing the challenges of being a union actor in Texas. June’s schedule includes a workshop on preparing for auditions requiring a dialect from the character. Dialect coach Sheila Gordon of St. Edwards University covered a broad spectrum of dialects in Texas, as well as others from around the world. Burton Casting will offer a workshop for AAC members in July and we follow that up with one of our Script-2-Screen staged readings in August. September will find ACC hosting an end-of-summer industry mixer at the W Hotel in downtown Austin. There will be an acting workshop in October and a special Skype seminar with Casting Director Amy Berman from Los Angeles. By then it will be time to plan the 2015 SAG Awards viewing party and start another year of activities hosted by the Austin Actors Conservatory.

To attend the AAC workshops and stay in touch with all the AAC activities, join the conservatory. Click here.

The SAG-AFTRA Houston Conservatory started the year off with a bang by hosting the Houston viewing party of the 20th annual SAG Awards, held at Black Finn American Grill on Jan. 18. With a Roaring ’20s themed party, actors, producers, agents and industry people gathered together to celebrate the awards show in style. Houston Style Magazine came out to interview some of our guests, which included 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyer’s Club actress Deneen Tyler, as well as Frank Eakin of Eakin Films, whose mother, Sue Eakin, helped to bring Solomon Northup’s original book back to life. Free conservatory memberships were given away to the best dressed ’20s-style male and female of the night, and door prizes include autographs from Grease actor Barry Pearl, Breaking Bad’s Patrick Sane and Glee’s Iqbal Theaba, who also donated an autographed Glee Script. All proceeds made from the party went to support the conservatory.

Our first workshop of the year was a master acting class with Authentic Film Acting coach Eleese Lester on March 22 at MediaTech. Eleese gave out some great tips on auditioning and the basics of breaking down a script, as well as giving notes to every actor who performed a scene at the workshop.

Up next, the conservatory will be presenting a workshop titled On Your Mark 2 on June 21 from 1-4 p.m. at MediaTech. We will cover the latest in actors’ resumes, headshots, bios and demo reels, as well as demonstrating how to properly self tape an audition and the proper format to send it off to agents and casting directors. On July 19, we will be having a workshop on contracts from 1-3 p.m. at MediaTech with Dallas-Fort Worth Local Executive Director Trish Avery and Miami Local Business Representative Ruth Paul via Skype. This workshop is for actors and producers who want to learn more about the different SAG-AFTRA contracts that are available and how to use them to work for their projects.

The SAG-AFTRA Houston Conservatory is only $35 a year, and membership allows actors to attend all workshops for free, including workshops in Austin through the Austin Actors Conservatory and through the Dallas Pro-Act Conservatory. To join the Houston Conservatory, click here. It’s the best investment in your career you will make all year.

This item was originally featured in the July 2014 local newsletter.