College Theatrical Resume

soozievt
Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:36:37 +0000

Tarhunt,

As some others have posted, they do not wish the tone of the thread to be adversarial, confrontational, or argumentative. I think all of us, yourself included, are sharing information, experiences, and trying to help others.

You posted:

Now, I find this quote of your surprising.



The point I was making earlier is that you seemed to be saying that printed resumes on the back of a head shot was THE way to go and that staples are antiquated.



I went back over what I’d posted and I don’t know where you got this.



As I said, I did get the impression from some of your posts that you felt that printing a resume on the back was preferrable and I also got the impression from some earlier posts that you felt stapling the resume was uncommon and not a good way to do it and old fashioned. I started to think that maybe my kid was the odd one who attaches a resume and asked what others do. I never put down printing it on the back and think that is a cool idea as well and mentioned I haven’t thought to run a headshot through the printer. Just as I thought your preferred way was fine, I was trying to suggest that the way my D and others I see doing it with staples or glue sticks is also fine and acceptable, as I thought you were initially saying it was a bad or quaint idea. However, then you came back and said both way are fine and I wrote that we agree, therefore, now that both ways or variations work.

The reason I got the idea that you thought printed resumes on the back was the right way was due to drawing inferences from some of your statements like these:



Seriously, if someone from where I live were to use a photo process resume photo and staple a resume to the back, it would look very, very quaint.





Kat, I find that bizarre. It’s the rare audition I attend that doesn’t require one to fill out some sort of audition sheet that gets stapled to the resume.





Once again, I find the practice of physically stapling a sheet of paper to the back of a resume a bit antediluvian in an age when it’s so easy to print a fresh resume on the back and not have to risk having the paper become attached…
What’s next? Requiring the resume to be done on a manual typewriter? Stamping your agent’s logo instead of printing it?





I am happy for this thread, because it tells me that I need to advise local children who are headed for auditions back East that they’ll need to forget they live in the 21st century to avoid annoying faculty.

Wow. Just wow.



So, forgive me if I misinterpretted you when I said that:

you seemed to be saying that printed resumes on the back of a head shot was THE way to go and that staples are antiquated.



When you use words like “quaint,” “bizarre,” “antediluvian,” “what’s next?,” “forget they live in the 21st Century,” or “Wow. Just wow,” it did draw me to conclude that you thought that printing on the back was the right way and that staples were not a good idea.

Once you clarified that both ways were fine…I posted that it seems we then agree.

However, I feel you did put down Kat when you posted:

That suggests that it’s really NOT OK to print the thing on the back, which I find just … ridiculous.
The idea that there would be something WRONG with printing on the back is, to me, absurd.



You were referring to her ideas as “ridiculous” and “absurd.” At the same time, she NEVER said that printing on the back was WRONG. She only mentioned what she preferred (attached resumes) or what she was used to. In reverse, it appeared that you were saying that it was ridiculous to attach a resume by staples in this day and age. She wasn’t saying that printing on the back was ridiculous or “NOT OK.”

So…what I think is that tone is not conducive to sharing ideas and it makes me uncomfortable. I didn’t see anyone putting down printing on the back. I saw people sharing what they do. I got a sense that you were putting down stapling but then you came back and clarified that there are many ways to go about it (and there are).

It is hardly worth arguing about. Share one’s own opinions without judging others’ opinions.

In this post, I tried to respond to you, Tarhunt, since you questioned where I got the idea that I thought you were suggesting that printed resumes on the back of head shots were the best or right way, to then explain why I had that arrived at that interprettation at first.

MusThCC…
I certainly think a high school kid should compose their own theater resume. However, often an adult might advise them with it, look it over, etc. The resume is theirs and they have ownership over the decisions. I don’t think adults should create it for them. But adults can play a role as an advisor. I have discussed my D’s resume with her when she makes changes. The decisions are all her own. I have helped with some formatting issues when we have had trouble with that on the computer and the way things line up, etc. I also help many college applicants with their theater resumes. I do not do their resumes FOR them, just like I never have for my own kid. I start with their draft and make suggestions for revisions. Young people starting out may benefit from advice, even though the piece is their creation and certainly THEIR decisions in terms of content and format.