INDUSTRY PORTFOLIO
INTRODUCTION
This portfolio is a compilation of the ongoing research I have made to ready myself for my impending introduction to the arts industry. As I will continue to develop as an artist, documents like my access rider and my CV should also be shaped, adapted and be informed by the state of the industry at any given time, and I want to be prepared to shift my research if I am inspired by something new. Creating this portfolio has made me excited for my graduate year and I feel ready for opportunities to come.
BIOGRAPHY
Having created many drafts of my biography, I decided to integrate my personality as much as I could. I wanted to find the best way to sum up myself as a performer, while mentioning both music and acting. I also noted my training both in and outside of the conservatoire, to show versatility and experience. Using the adjectives ‘sparky,’ ‘energetic’ and ‘radiates a positive energy’ feel unique to me, as I didn’t want to use generic words like ‘driven’ or committed.’ I hope that my choice of words throughout my biography will help me stand out to an industry professional.
ACCESS RIDER
I broke my wrist and had an operation on it this year, facing many challenges. So, I thought it would be beneficial to start make an access rider. I thought about what I would need to make the rehearsal room more accessible for me now, especially as I am beginning to return to general activity. I intend to use this after Easter, when I will be beginning to work with external creatives who won’t have prior knowledge of my injury. Writing this has made me feel more comfortable about speaking up for what I need to help me work at my best in a room.
INDUSTRY RESEARCH
Having a primal focus on regional American accents in early second year made me want to develop more local regional accents such as Birmingham. I read an article that says putting on an accent is ‘on the way out.’ A direct quote from one article I read says:
‘The Crucible and Little Shop of Horrors – both shows that could be held up as quintessentially American – had actors using their own voices during 2024.’
The article further states that a Brummie played Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors. So, when I looked at my local theatres, I found that Birmingham Rep’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be set in Birmingham with Birmingham accents. The artistic director, Joe Murphy, is also looking for local casting. This excites me as someone from the Midlands, as I used to feel that in performance Northern and Southern accents were used significantly more.
THEATRES & SHOWS
I created a table of different theatres and what shows they were currently doing or had done previously. This helped me to find out more about what goes on in the background of the shows at those theatres, and after researching productions like ‘Punch’ and going to see ‘Small Island’ I found out that Leeds Playhouse also works with Birmingham Rep and Nottingham Playhouse. I figured out that this means they can share resources and accommodate wider touring. I really like this partnership, as it connects my home base with my university base. Being on the actor-musician course, I am always thrilled when I see a theatre is doing a show with a predominant actor-musician cast, such as the upcoming Barnum tour. Having a huge interest in folk musicals, I thoroughly researched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at The Ambassadors Theatre. Through this I discovered that the casting director, Ginny Schiller CDG, has also cast for Birmingham Rep, the Curve and Nottingham Playhouse. I am also excited to see that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is returning, especially after the The National production with Frantic Assembly movement direction was so successful. Frantic Assembly has been a company that I have been interested in for a long time, ever since I went to see their version of Othello. On their website it specifies that they work with casting directors for their productions and don’t hold open auditions. This led me to research casting directors recently involved with them, Will Burton and Sarah Hughes.
CASTING DIRECTORS. AGENTS, & DIRECTORS
Finding Will Burton was useful because he recently cast The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe UK tour, which was full of actors and actor-musicians. This has made me want to look for even more casting directors who do this. After working with Sean Linnen on The Moors in December, I have wanted to always keep him in my mind; and after doing some research about him I found that he is about to make his directorial debut at the RSC. After working on the Shakespeare project, the RSC is one of my newfound dream places to perform. I want to explore more agent possibilities to truly get a sense of what my ideal representation would be, keeping this list I have made.
VISUAL IDENTITY
HEADSHOTS
To decide my preferences and book my first industry standard headshots, I decided to look at the current third years for inspiration. After analysing different companies, I decided that my ideal choice is AKTA Photography, especially because of their ‘pay what you can’ programme. This is right for me due to my background, and it would be wise to start off with more affordable headshots. All the AKTA headshots I looked at, particularly those with similar tones to me, had complimentary backgrounds and had an overall ‘bright’ feel, which is how I want to be seen. I have started to think about what I want to wear, the types of colours that would suit me best, and the shapes that I would want to avoid or steer towards. I have begun testing these colours in my everyday wardrobe. Also, I have quite light blue eyes, so I would like to make sure that the lighting catches that.
CV
I formatted my CV on Word and wanted to make it catered to overall performance. This is so I can continue to edit and create different copies of it to tailor the document to multiple types of jobs. I have left space for my headshot and have made a mirror of a spotlight profile to have as printed media instead of digital. When I get my spotlight account, I intend to make sure these documents have as much similarity as possible, while still tailoring it to the jobs I’m trying to get. I wanted to make sure there was still room to add new jobs, new skills, and any extra information later, so currently my CV is a page and a half. I have also inputted various templates for upcoming work and representation.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Going forward, I would like to use my social media platform on instagram for both personal and professional use. This way, I can show work that I am up to and imply that I have a life outside of performing.
I have curated my page so that any personal posts are clean and my story highlights consist of different shows I have worked on and instrument playing. This is a straightforward way for someone to tap on a button and quickly scroll through a visual representation of the work I have done so far.
My bio at the top of the page will help people to quickly link me to my disciplines as a performer.
NETWORKING
I have begun an ongoing document of everyone I have met so far during my training and how they connect to me. The MA festival in 2025 has helped me to build connections with musical theatre students, who then asked me to be a member of their band in their third-year cabarets. Unluckily, I had to pull out in the end because of my injury, but I still see it as a success story. My band and I have successfully launched a cabaret with acts consisting of students from across the school of drama and music. Our marketing has been successful; we have a band instagram account, created posters to put around campus, and reached out to external events, such as the New Age Fundraiser. Networking has helped the band to grow; and has given us opportunities to play at small venues in Leeds.
REFLECTION
In the first block of skills I saw a shift in the way I work in music practice; being able to sight read lines on saxophone and finding guitar notation much simpler. Working on ‘Return to the Forbidden Planet’ has helped with this, and as it is an actor-musician show, it led me to further research that being able to play similar instruments of similar form would be useful in the future. Picking up bass guitar has been exciting for me because I was thrown in the deep end a lot with it and it has made me more confident in my knowledge of guitar. I have found my way around fret boards much easier and have even played in performances at the beginning of the year. I have a strong and significantly improved ability on the guitar and having variety in this area will surely be useful to me in the future.
During the panto project this year my understanding of music was at an all time high; picking up sheet music quickly and playing it through as soon as we started. At first, I was a bit skeptical about the world of panto, but the City Varieties Rock ‘n’ Roll panto changed my mind; being able to see actor-musician rehearsals in real time and speaking to Rob Salmon was a fantastic experience of getting insider knowledge of a professional rehearsal environment.
American project was the first time I was able to thoroughly test my acting process; I was able to shape and change areas I didn’t think ‘clicked’ as much, while also adding new things that my director Sean Linnen introduced us to. Something I found useful in this project is analysing every line, question, and stage direction. I recently watched an interview of Robert Pattinson where he described unpacking everything in the text and turning it inside out. Hearing this from someone I admire and doing this for The Moors helped me to delve so much deeper into the character I was playing.
I was able to put my General American accent into practice here; having spent a term learning accents from different areas of America. Using the accents all the time in voice lessons really helped me connect to them so much more than in first year, as we were using it in our everyday speech and I became very confident in Southern American and New York. I was proud of what I achieved during this block and how I was able to use my own personalised process for the very first time.
Shakespeare assessments came along quickly, exploring it in acting, voice, and movement. I was able to critically analyse my Beatrice and Benedick duologue from Much Ado About Nothing in acting as I had done in the American project. I used to not be the biggest fan of Shakespeare, but this project has given me the chance to grow my confidence and as a result I am now more enthusiastic about it. I am hopeful that I will be able to explore it further during my training, but if not, I look forward to seeing what Shakespeare opportunities are available when I leave, especially regionally.
I was worried about working through movement after my injury, but I found alternative ways to move through the Shakespeare assessment piece, and in turn that only helped my character, Don John. I found this role challenging at first as it is far from what I am typically cast as, but I really enjoyed playing something completely different, made me realise that an actor should be able to morph into any character, and I was able to personalise my movement during the dance piece. I would usually play it as the energetic life of the party, but this time I was someone who lurked in the background and gossiped secretly, observing what the other characters were doing.
I have improved significantly in voice, receiving positive feedback and always being encouraged to test my voice efforts in other principles too which has helped to train my voice to work in different circumstances. We were asked to use our own accent during the Shakespeare block, so I was able to practice being on voice in my own accent and I was able to explore the scene in regional contexts. This year, voice has made me quite interested in voice acting, especially after having tried new things and listening to an audio drama, Cabin Pressure, and having played a narrative-led video game, Hogwarts Legacy. This had lots of different characters that were played by the same person. I saw a video of the actor showing the ways he changed his voice to create all the different characters, which is an area of voice I would still like to develop further.
SUMMATIVE STATEMENT
When I injured my wrist at the end of this term, it was a major set back for my confidence in music. I was no longer able to play guitar, and mentally I was held back from picking up my saxophone. This only encouraged me further to take a priority on bass guitar and begin the basics of piano. Our group was encouraged to get to know basic skills of piano if we hadn’t already, as it would be useful for rehearsal practices and auditions. Seeing as my injury bound me from all my other instruments, I decided this was the perfect time to begin over Christmas. I now find it much easier to break down sheet music and songs with my piano. At the beginning of 2026, we had our original performance music assessment, and I was incredibly anxious about the topic. I decided to take it slowly, bit by bit, and to see how I get on while making sure I don’t strain my wrist too much. Eventually I did it, and I am proud of what I achieved considering I played an entire song on piano, used bass as my primary instrument, and started to work back on my guitar. This made me determined to get back on my saxophone afterwards. I am excited to start playing it again for my musicianship and choreography assessment, playing with my band, and more. Throughout my training, my biggest journey has been through music, and I have come a long way from someone who played self-taught guitar for fun.
I have noted that all of my development this year has always come from the process of a project. Some of my biggest differences in strength have come from between the American project and the Shakespeare assessments. In my feedback for the The Moors, it said that I needed to let myself do more to the other characters. When I went into the Shakespeare project, I wanted to focus on listening to the other person more and really understand what they were saying, which would decide my characters response. During both processes I have learnt how important it is to analyse what both characters are saying, and not just my own. Shakespeare specially made me realise this as I was translating the entire scene into modern English, so I really had to understand every detail of the scene. My Shakespeare assessment was the moment where all of my work really came together. My marker said it felt like a ‘real’ performance and the connection I had with my scene partner was brilliant, so I am glad focusing on that paid off. Raising the stakes and making bold choices are things that I found difficult in the past, and I was always told that I should go ‘further.’ However, Shakespeare really opened my eyes to what is possible if I just trust myself in making exciting choices and discoveries throughout the process, and not just the final performance. I enjoyed adapting the scene to fit a specific context to create personalised stakes, as it helped me to respond to the text and the character in an original way.
Using tactics and actions was always something I would get stuck on because I would restrict myself to generic and predictable offers. When I bought ‘Actions, The Actors’ Thesaurus,’ it introduced me to a wider range of different words to use. In a voice lesson, we were asked to choose actions for different thoughts in the monologues we were working on and then make them the complete opposite. This was a key learning moment for me because I discovered several ways that the speech and character could be played, when usually I would hit a wall in rehearsals. I plan to take this idea into future projects as it will help me feel more creative when it comes to scene work. Physical theatre and movement are also ways that help me get out of a creative block. I realised that this year especially, because in The Moors, later in the rehearsal process, we were getting ‘bored’ with the scene as nothing exciting was happening with the chemistry and the connection between my scene partner and me. To stop this, we started using the staging and furniture as scaffolding to move on and create ‘game’ sequences to help us find new ways of playing the scene. Movement allows me to express myself and climb out of moments when I hit a stand still in my process, and in future I want to lead with this more, hopefully finding opportunities to devise through movement.
Overall, second year has had many walls and challenges, but I have never felt so clear about my process and what I would like to continue to develop in third year, putting everything into further practice during my graduate season. I have enjoyed having mock auditions and filming self tapes for this year’s MA festival, as it has given me more experience of preparing and filming under short notice. I would like to improve my knowledge of film and TV, as I have a lot of prior understanding of the creative side of it, but not as much in front of the camera or practically realising everything. This year, I have found that my most effective research comes from watching films that a project relates to, as I have a very visual mind. I have realised that I need to do further research into what I might like to do for my showreels and voice reels for third year, so that is something I need to work on.
CONCLUSION
My industry research has helped me to create a clearer idea of what I want to do after my training. I see myself in actor-musician shows, straight plays, movement led pieces and more. Recovering from my injury only motivated me further, finding alternative ways to move, play my instruments, and have revelations about my craft. This portfolio has made me see how different I was at the end of Year 1 to now, the end of Year 2. I am excited for what third year will bring and what is soon to come in the future.
