Resume Advice

Resumes for StrawHat (or anywhere, really….)

Your picture & resume are your calling card - the first thing a casting director sees and often the FIRST tool used to determine your qualifications. Theatrical resumes are not the same as traditional business resumes, and StrawHat Auditions has specific requirements. Please review the following guidelines.

• Your Name. Be consistent! Are you Mike or Michael? It should be the same on your resume, online profile, and in all correspondence.
• Your direct contact phone number, along with agency contact if you have representation.
• Your email address. We strongly recommend that you consider creating a free account (gmail, yahoo, etc.) instead of using an “.edu” account. Many universities use spam filters that block delivery of our mail. That would be bad.
• Height, Hair Color, Eye Color, Voice Type or Range (for singers), Union Affiliations.
• NEVER list your home address or Social Security number!

• No colored paper or inks
• No background “fill” colors in text boxes

• You are never going to hand a casting director a copy of your resume without having it attached to your photo anyway.
• It wastes space on the page that you can put to better use (see Font Size below).
• Color copies are expensive! Don’t waste your money when a plain black & white resume is all that’s expected (see above).

Font Style: Legible. Try one of these: Times New Roman, Helvetica, Gil Sans, Arial, etc. NO Italics or cursive fonts! If we can’t read it, we’re not interested.

Font Size: Do not use any thing smaller than 11 point – and 12 point is preferable. If your resume is packed to the gills at 11 point, then congratulations! But it means that it's time to start doing some pruning from the different categories.

• Set your left and top margins for 0.5", your right margin for 1", and your bottom margin for 1.5" and then you can easily trim the excess from the right and bottom. Office supply stores usually have a table top paper cutter in the copy center. Use it.
• Credits should be listed in set columns: Play, Role, then Theatre. Set tabs at intervals to make the columns line up neatly.
• Categories can help break up a long list of credits or beef up a resume that may seem thin. You can separate Musical Theatre and Plays; Summer Stock and Educational; Educational and Community. You get the idea.

• Arthur Miller wrote a classic American play. It was not titled “DEARTH of a Salesman.”
• “Huddle” is a football term, not a character in Fiddler on the Roof. Her name is Hodel, not to be confused with the guy who sings “Wonder of Wonders.” His name is Motel.
• Be sure your phone number and email are spelled correctly. Seriously.
• Scenes performed in class do not count as theatre credits and should not appear on your resume.
• “Representatives Roles” is shorthand for scene study work, and do not count as performance credits.
• Technical credits, including directing, do not belong on a performance resume. List tech ability under Additional Skills

Don't Abbreviate! Casting reps can’t possibly know that CIA means “Chelsea Integrated Arts”, instead of Central Intelligence Agency. Some abbreviations are known and understood (like NYC) but U of M can be Michigan, Missouri, Montana…Mongolia?

Don't Lie! At a combined audition, you can be guaranteed that casting reps know each other, talk to each other, and have worked everywhere. They will ask about you. So don’t put fake credits on your resume! It implies a weakness of character and it can haunt you for a long time.

Educational & Community Theatre Credits: The jury is split on this: some faculties we know strongly recommend that high school credits disappear once a performer is in a good college training program, but at StrawHat it helps us to know that you played leads all through high school, even though as a sophomore in college you’ve only had two ensemble roles.

Training: List your school and degree program, i.e: Spelvin University, BFA Musical Theatre. Still in school? Add to that: Class of 2024, or something along those lines. Dance disciplines, voice training, and instrumental music training should indicate the number of years you've studied: Ballet (15 years) Tap (10 years), etc.

Special Skills need to be just that – special. Do not list “beginner” anything as a special skill. Only provide skills you perform with proficiency.

Save Your Resume as a 1-page pdf file to upload to your profile page. Make sure the PDF does not run to a second blank page.