Introduction

Going into the Professional Industry, it is important to figure out what kind of performer you want to be and understanding what makes you unique in a world of performers who, on the surface, are just like you. In this portfolio, I will initially identify my goals for going into the professional industry. Following on from this, my portfolio will outline my strategies that I am putting in place to put myself in the best position to achieve those goals.

My Goals

As a performer, I am quite versatile. I consider myself to be a triple threat, being a strong dancer, singer and actor. A pathway that I would love to explore is being a swing or a dance captain. My brain is well accustomed to remembering lots of different routines and formations, and variations on those routines. Before training at Leeds Conservatoire, I qualified as a teacher in Tap and Modern. Whilst training, I took on the role of dance captain during our Performance Project, Cabaret, which allowed me to understand the expectations of the role and made me realise that it is something I am not only capable of, but really enjoy doing. These skills and qualifications mean that I am well suited to taking on dance captain roles and need to find ways of showing that to casting directors who may find me online.

Alongside this, I am also a skilled musician, being proficient in piano, flute and saxophone. This opens up the work that I can audition for from just plays and musicals to Actor-Musician shows. Being an Actor-Musician is incredibly useful at the moment as the industry is having a rise in Actor-Musician shows such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Derby Theatre and Northern Stage’s 2026 production of Little Shop of Horrors (WhatsOnStage.com, 2025). In order to follow this specific goal, I am currently looking at MA courses in Actor-Musicianship. This is offered at Rose Bruford as a purely Actor-Musician pathway, but is also offered at the Central School of Speech and Drama as part of their MA Music Theatre pathway.

I am also a bilingual performer who is incredibly passionate about Wales and Welsh theatre. This is something that could make me stand out from other performers and also allow me to get more variety of work as there are certain theatres in Wales that create bilingual or fully Welsh language shows, most notably National Theatre Wales’ Our Town, which toured both England and Wales.

Overall, actors spend more time out of work than they do having work. Taking this knowledge into consideration I am also creating the goal of building a photography business alongside my acting career. I am currently most proficient with photographing rehearsal rooms and shows, however moving forward I would also broaden my range to go into headshot photography for performers.

Industry Contacts

A goal I have had for as long as I’ve wanted to perform is to work at Theatr Clwyd in North Wales. Theatr Clwyd is recognised as Wales’ largest producing theatre (Theatr Clwyd, 2017a), so I believe working with Theatr Clwyd would be incredibly exciting as there is always work coming out of it. Growing up in North Wales myself, I have a close connection with Theatr Clwyd, having performed on their stage as a child, joining their youth theatre as a teenager and even performing in their productions as part of the community cast as a young adult. These connections give me a good starting point to work with the theatre professionally.

According to their website, they use a range of casting directors and their “casting process can change project-by-project” (Theatr Clwyd, 2017a) so this ruled out getting in touch with casting directors directly. I came to the decision to contact Kate Wasserberg, the Artistic Director of Theatr Clwyd. I did this because, Artistic directors are “responsible for shaping the artistic vision of a company” whose job includes the hiring of actors (Get into Theatre, n.d.). In Image 1, I have written a covering letter in which I chose to highlight not only my skills as a performer and what I can bring to Theatr Clwyd, but also my personal connection with the theatre, emphasising why I want to work there specifically.

Another avenue I have explored is getting in touch with writer Christian Patterson, who is the writer of Theatr Clwyd’s Pantomime. Christian is someone I know personally through my past experiences with Theatr Clwyd, so I thought by getting in touch with him, I might be able to be seen for a future production. Image 2 shows a direct message I sent Christian on Instagram. I chose to contact him via social media because I already have a connection with him and wanted to keep the interaction more informal. I found this style of contact to be very difficult, as I had to tread the line between making myself appear professional to someone who has known me for years, whilst keeping the informality between myself and a friend.

Online Presence

As performers, we need to be easily seen online by casting directors. One way of doing this is to create a website. Something I personally wanted to highlight immediately on my website is the fact that I am a Bilingual, with Welsh being my second language. As you can see in Image 3, I chose to write my introduction and header links in both English and Welsh. My hope in doing this would be that anyone creating Welsh language work can see I am not only a welsh speaker, but that I am proud of that fact, and they would hopefully be more likely to reach out. Another subtle detail I added was using green as part of the website’s colour scheme as Green is one of the main colours associated with Wales, subconsciously re-emphasising my Welsh identity to anyone viewing my website.

Under the media section of my website, I wanted to highlight everything I could do as quickly as possible. To do this, I split up the page into different, easily identifiable sections, as seen in Images 4, 5 & 6. This is important because casting directors don’t want to search through lots of media to find what they need to see. For example, if a casting director was looking at my website to see if I was right for an Actor-Musician show, they will quickly be able to see where my acting and instrumental videos are and get in touch with me, whereas if my videos were all together, a casting director wouldn’t spend time searching for the right video, they would simply move on.

The last and, arguably most important, part of my website is my contact tab. Having this page allows anyone to contact me almost instantly. Being easily contactable is important, especially being unrepresented by an agent. As you can see in Image 6, I specifically designed this page to be easy to view and understand as I wouldn’t want to risk someone finding it too difficult to contact me. Alongside the contact form, I also added links to my social media accounts (Highlighted in Image 8). I did this because I believe that social media can act as a self promotion tool just as much as a website can.

Social media has the potential to positively impact your career if used correctly. However to keep it constantly updated with new content can be quite a challenge. The use of social media is primarily how I plan on building my photography business. Images 9 and 10 show a snapshot of my instagram account dedicated to my photography business ‘Snowden Snaps’. Instagram is a beneficial platform for this business as it’s not particularly difficult to create content for since I am simply uploading the work I have done. My account has already started to create business for me, getting requests for work via direct messaging (Image 11).

Finally, once I graduate, I will be able to join Spotlight, which is the current industry standard for casting. As I am not currently able to be on this platform, I have curated a CV based on what I would have if I were on Spotlight (Image 12). My CV has all the relevant information that a casting director might need from me along with a headshot that I believe best represents how I want to be seen as a performer. In comparison to my website, I would upload singing and dance reels to my Spotlight to show the highlights of my abilities. This is because Casting Directors don’t spend lots of time on your Spotlight, they are much more likely to move on quickly, therefore I would want to show the best of my abilities as quickly as possible.

Media

Within my website, I have attached lots of different media showing all of the skills that a casting director might need to see. When choosing what sort of songs I put up on my website, I had to think about what my casting type is. As a short female performer, I am suited to playing younger characters, such as teenagers and young adults. For this reason the Musical Theatre songs I chose are characters of that age range. However within that scope, I chose to show a range of genres from legit to contemporary to highlight the different vocal styles I can perform within my casting type. (Image 13). Depending on the characters I was portraying, I chose particular colours for my clothes. As seen in Image 14, I opted for light, pastel colours to fit with the character of Eliza in My Fair Lady versus in Image 15, where I opted for a blue to fit with the depressed state of Veronica in Heathers. I am also aware that musical theatre often requires a pop/rock audition and so for this reason I also added a clip of me singing Piece of My Heart by Janis Joplin (Video 1). I also decided to keep my singing videos to under 2 minutes so that I could show as much as possible as quickly as possible.

As I want to be seen for dance captain or swing positions in the industry, I thought it would be beneficial to add dance videos as well. Like with my voice, I primarily wanted to show off my versatility. For this reason, I added a few different styles to my website, including tap, commercial and jazz. (Video 3, Video 4 and Video 5). I decided to film these videos in a studio with large windows which overlook Leeds. I chose this backdrop because I felt it was more eye catching and memorable than a plain wall which could make me stand out from others’ dance reels.

Since another avenue I want to explore is Actor-Musicianship, I decided to add instrumental videos to my website. Like my vocal and dance media, I chose to individually display each instrument in its own video rather than in a highlight reel (Image 16). The reason I chose to do this is so that anyone looking at my website can easily see what instruments I play and find whichever instrument they need to see.

Finally, I attached headshots and production shots. I find production shots to be a good addition to a website as they allow people to see you in action in a show as opposed to filmed/edited material. Headshots are also important because they show a casting director the kind of characters you can play. For example, in Image 17 I have chosen a happy demeanour paired with bright coloured clothing to emulate young and joyful characters but in Image 18 I opted for a more serious look to suggest that I would also be suitable for meaner, more serious characters.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have discovered many different ways to show myself off as a professional in the industry. The biggest thing I have learnt from this module is figuring out what kind of performer I want to be, and how to get that across to potential employers. I have learnt that the best way to do this is by keeping any types of media easy to see and access. Potential employers won’t spend lots of time looking at your media, so if it’s not easy to access, they will move on. Going forward I intend to build on the ideas presented and use what I have learnt in this module to create professional working relationships and maintain the career that I have chosen to pursue.

Bibliography

Get into Theatre. (n.d.). What does an Artistic Director do? [online] Available at: https://getintotheatre.org/blog/what-does-an-artistic-director-do-in-theatre/. [Accessed 12 May 2026].
Theatr Clwyd. (2017a). About Theatr Clwyd | Theatr Clwyd. [online] Available at: https://www.theatrclwyd.com/visit/about-us. [Accessed 6 May 2026].
Theatr Clwyd. (2017b). Casting & Programming | Theatr Clwyd. [online] Available at: https://www.theatrclwyd.com/casting-programming. [Accessed 10 May 2026].
WhatsOnStage.com (2025). Actor-musician Little Shop of Horrors to run next spring. [online] Available at: https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/actor-musician-little-shop-of-horrors-to-run-next-spring_1692794/. [Accessed 6 May 2026].