How to Find Auditions Near You

Actors ask me where to find auditions near them more than they ask me anything else, and for years my answer was a list of websites. That was the wrong answer. The websites are the last step. The first step is knowing what kind of audition you’re looking for, because a theater audition, a film audition and a commercial audition live in three different places, and typing “auditions near me” into Google finds none of them.

Where do you find auditions near you?

Theater auditions are on the theater companies’ own sites and on Backstage and Playbill. Film and television auditions run through casting directors and the big casting sites, Casting Networks and Actors Access first. Commercial auditions come through casting directors or straight from the local talent agencies. So the search is: decide the type, get a profile on the sites that carry it, find the casting directors and agencies in your market, and audition for everything you can reach. If you’re in Arizona, the Phoenix version of this page names the people.

The four kinds of audition, and where each one lives

• Theater. The company’s own website first, then Backstage and Playbill. Most theaters post their season’s auditions on their own schedule and nowhere else.
• Film. Casting directors and the national sites. Student films through the film schools near you, which hold auditions as part of the coursework.
• Television. Almost entirely through casting directors, and mostly through an agent once you have one.
• Commercials. Casting directors, and sometimes the talent agencies directly. In a smaller market this is the most consistent paid work there is.

The current list of audition websites, with what each one is for, is kept on the book page. Have a strategy before you enroll in any of them: they cost time and money before they return anything, and they will not make you rich and famous.

The two kinds of actor looking

Talented and unrepresented

You’re working hard, refining your skills, looking for auditions. You hit a wall and go looking for an agent, and the agents don’t want an actor who hasn’t booked anything. You can’t build a résumé without auditions and you can’t get the auditions without a résumé. I know. Chicken and egg. Here’s the way through: student films, industrials, the unpaid short, the local theater. Work for free for a season because that is what you’re worth at the start, and then value yourself enough to get paid. How to get an acting agent is the rest of that answer.

Represented and ready for more

You got signed. Congratulations, you did it. Then you realize getting signed didn’t change your life: you audition now and then, and you want to be doing this every day. So you start toying with out-of-market auditions, Los Angeles, New Mexico, Atlanta, wherever the trendy spot is this year, and you find you’re back where you started, building a résumé to be competitive in a new market. The work never stops. Agent or no agent, keep finding auditions on your own, and check your contract before you submit out of state.

Do you have to move to Los Angeles or New York?

My answer to this has changed completely. We used to push actors toward a major market as soon as they had a solid résumé, because that’s where the best auditions were. Then technology moved and casting directors started holding national auditions; where you lived mattered less every year. Then 2020 changed the industry for good, and productions learned to cast without anyone traveling. So when do I recommend moving to L.A. or New York? Whenever that’s where you want to live. It is no longer necessary to be successful, and I have the students to prove it.

The part nobody wants to hear

Finding auditions comes down to research and patience, and the actors who find them are the ones who were ready when the notice went out. Don’t give fear any room. You are going to screw up, and that’s how you learn. If you wait until you feel ready, you’ll never go. An imperfect first impression beats no impression, and you’ll be noticed for your progress, not remembered by your last failure. Set goals, adjust them as you grow, and get back in the room every week whether or not there’s an audition on the calendar. There are no shortcuts, and the search never really ends. That’s the job.