NOW UPDATED WITH 2013 RATES AND SERVICES. From Broadway to Soundstage, Bev Leech offers 30 years of professional insight to the business of acting in Los Angeles and beyond. Begin, maintain, and sustain an exhilarating career as a performing artist in stage, television and film. Each successive chapter lays out the actor's next move in building an acting career: the actor's game plan, building your resume, getting representation, taking meetings and understanding contracts, differentiating audition techniques for stage, television and film, script breakdown, scams, and more. Whether you are new or an established professional, this book provides a solid and legitimate foundation of professional taste and insight to help you find work in this industry through all of its ever-changing tastes, and survive its “feast or famine," “crickets or cannonballs” energy. "Building an acting career is not an exact science. You won't find any hard and fast rules, but there are basic, established methods and protocol. I've shared those that I've found most useful, to show you a path toward a career worth having. Above all, don't strive to 'make it.' Strive to pave your own road and walk it like a warrior -- a road warrior. Good show, break a leg, and Carpe Diem!" ~ Bev Leech The companion audio CD of the chapter segment 'Nuts and Bolts' is also available separately on Amazon, "Actor Muscle: Nuts and Bolts of Audition Technique for Television and Film."
This 252-page book is written especially for an actor to begin, maintain and sustain an exhilarating career, offering the game plan, audition techniques, and the most up-to-date practices on the professional front. Actor Muscle: Craft. Grit. Wit. can show the path for a career worth having. Starting with a realistic game plan, each successive chapter is the actor’s next move. It lays out every stage of the game: from headshots and resumes, to getting an agent, talent contracts, comprehensive methods of submissions and auditioning for stage, television, and film, unions, scams, and hard-won wisdom of the open road. “Actors by nature are renegades. We don’t want to conform – we want to act, and that’s all. We’ll plunge the dangerous depths of psychological menace in a role, but mew like a stray cat over a cold call to an agent … The purpose of this book is for young actors to reach for legitimate skills and services to find work in this industry; to survive its ever-changing tastes, and crickets-or-cannonballs energy.”
Bev is as good as it gets. She’s smart, hardworking and a true craftsman – which is a bigger compliment than most people would think. I adore her as an actress and enthusiastically endorse her views in her Professional Guide to the Business of Acting. ~ Bobby Moresco, Academy Award Winning Writer/Director, Crash, Million Dollar Baby.
Bev is the perfect actress who practices all she preaches. She’s a wonderful, energetic, positive actress, whose work is exemplary. ~ Al Onorato, Manager, and Co-founder of CSA Casting Society of America
Bev is not only a fine actress, but a top-notch teacher. She knows the business of acting more than most do and is not afraid to share it. Bev’s a terrific coach and instructor and her book includes all the tips and tricks, and do’s and don’ts that actors really need in the business. ~ Val Jobara, Rush, Kickass, The Bronx is Burning
In all my years as Co-Artistic Director of the Actors Gym in Los Angeles, I’ve come across very few artists as passionate and devoted to the pure craft of acting as Bev. She is such an amazing person to have in your artistic circle. ~ Amanda Moresco, Writer/Producer
I wish there was a book like this when I was starting out! Bev Leech simplifies the hard truths of the business from the heart of her creative soul ... She explains to the serious actor how to keep their eye on the prize and enjoy! The pursuit of acting has been called 'the lonely road'. Read this book and take Bev Leech along for the ride. Your journey will never be lonely again! ~ Mike Rispoli, Magic City, While You Were Sleeping, The Soprano's, The Rum Diary
Beverly Leech has done a masterful job of moving the reader from the beginning of their journey as an actor to the audition ... If you are a young actor, Actor Muscle, A Professional Guide to the Business of Acting is not a book you should think about picking up, it is a book that you must purchase! You will not find a better resource for the business side of acting ... and a "must read" for that matter in many vocations. ~ Joe Montague, Riveting Riffs Magazine
If you're an author or publisher, you've come to the right place. BookBuzzr provides one of the most comprehensive set of book-marketing technologies and services in the world. We're constantly adding new features in a race with ourselves to build technologies that will help your books fly out of book-stores.