Introduction and Biography
My focus for my second year actor training was to find what skills I can bring to the industry that make me an interesting, unique and adaptable performer. However, it was equally important to identify my areas of development and create an action plan to continue honing my skills whilst launching my career. During a meeting I set up with Tom Aldersley, we discussed how I can market myself to industry professionals, and how my identity and background is an asset in making interesting conversation and leaving a lasting impression. From this meeting, I thought a lot about how being from a working class cotton and coal mining town, which also has a thriving arts community, means I feel passionate about giving working class voices a place in theatre and film. Furthermore, being a queer woman, bringing diversity to these stories. I wrote my biography with this in mind as well as highlighting my experience and skills. In my career, I may also be asked for a longer biography or a biography that specifies only my credits, for example in a theatre programme. In third year, I plan to make a variety of biographies that I can use for different purposes so I am prepared for each scenario.
Industry Research
When researching agents, casting directors and directors who I would like to form connections with in the industry, I began by looking into actors who inspire me and fit my demographic.
I decided to research into Millie Gibson, an actress from Greater Manchester with credits such as Doctor Who and period drama: The Forsythes. These are productions I would love to be cast in one day, and Millie’s career progression is something I would like for myself. I looked into Millie’s agent, Kate Buckley at 42 Management, and was impressed to see they have bases in London and Los Angeles and produce their own TV and film. Their connections are strong as they represent casting directors and have many agents under the umbrella of 42 Management. Although aiming high, this is an agent I would like to contact for my third year showcases as I feel I will have more chance being backed by the conservatoire than on my own.
Contacts like this are brilliant to aspire to in my career, however having limited credits, I also need to look at smaller agencies. I looked into an actor I know from home, Lauren Sturgess. Since graduating from ALRA North she has worked with companies such as Thickskin, Wrongsemble and The Royal Exchange. She is represented by Amber Personal Management which is an agency I have been following for a while now. This was exciting to see as I would love to work with both Thickskin Theatre and Amber Personal Management.
Thickskin theatre is a Wigan based theatre company that are ‘telling stories through quality, future-facing, multi-disciplined formats… and driven by diverse voices ‘( Thickskin Theatre, 2026). I love their work as I think it is breaking the boundaries of what theatre has generally been, and tells stories in interesting, unexpected ways. I have taken my first steps to engage with them by following their social medias and signing up to their mailing list. I also did a voluntary project with them before drama school, therefore I plan to email them (mentioning how I have worked with them before and how much it helped my development as an artist) about what I have found inspiring about their recent work. Through my research, I saw they started a young company in 2025 called Generator, where they create a piece of work with a company of young creatives to find new talent and show them how they work. I plan to apply for this as I think this will build a relationship with the company and keep me in mind for new work. I also plan to meet Lauren for a coffee to ask her what her experience was like getting work with Thickskin and if she has any advice for contacting her agent Amber Personal Management, as this is an agency I would love to sign with in my third year.
When thinking about industry connections, I also looked back on which ones I have already. I was represented by a youth agency as a teenager and made some useful relationships through my training so far, therefore I made a spreadsheet of all of these and colour coded it to how long it has been since I contacted them. My goal for the end of 2026 is to make sure they are all green. Below is my connections spreadsheet on Figures 1 and 2.
Headshot research
When coming to a decision on a headshot photographer for my graduating headshots, I first looked back on my previous headshots to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Taken by Izza Shot photography, I liked how well lit they were, how my eyes popped and the definition of the photos. However, I felt the background was too dark and lighting a little cold for my liking, without option to change. Furthermore, the edit was too airbrushed, minimising my natural freckles and skin texture. I also reflected on my own choices for this shoot. I felt my hairstyle was too mature for my casting bracket as one of my strengths as an actor is that I can play down to an early teenager. The light blue top was a good choice as the colour works well with my skin tone and fit a young professional casting bracket. However, the beige knit top was a poor decision as it was the same colour as my skin. Not only did that make the photos feel bland but if the photos were viewed in lower definition it could be hard to see I was wearing anything at all. My training has since taught me to find the colours that make my features pop, so my face can be the main focus of the headshot, rather than any distracting colours, patterns, jewellery or lighting issues pulling focus.
Finally, I feel I did not adequately research Izza Shot’s style and experience before this shoot as since, it has become clear to me that she almost exclusively photographs dancers rather than actors. This explains the airbrushed edit of my headshots and how I do not feel many photos leant into any particular casting types.
This experience has highlighted what is important to me for my graduate headshots. I wanted to find a photographer with a range of colourful but muted backgrounds that were slightly textured, so I felt more grounded in the space, natural lighting to give my face a youthful feel without washing out my features, and photos that were well lit and interesting.
I researched photographers through social media and took notice of who actors I admire have chosen. VRC Studios stood out to me for their character led, natural light headshots. Their pictures are vibrant and when looking through their portfolio clear characters jumped out to me instantly. This was perfect as I really want to lean into my typecast with my headshots. Once I found my photographer, I made a plan for each headshot to lean towards a certain casting bracket: period drama/ classical theatre, working class northern soap/drama, young professional, and school/young people’s theatre and tv. I also spent lots of time in changing rooms finding the colours that made my features pop and styles of clothing that hinted at the casting brackets I was trying to hit. Underneath are reference photos from VRC studios of actors who showed their casting potential through their headshot.
CV development
Having previously been on spotlight, I am familiar with the style of acting CVs on the site and wanted to replicate the layout as much as possible. The style is sleek and professional with easily readable sections, whilst being concise – the CV has just the relevant information a casting director would need.
As for the content of the CV, I viewed the spotlights of the current third years to get a sense for how many skills and credits they were including as well as what parts of their biography they included in the ‘about me’ section. I derived that only professional and the most impressive conservatoire credits were the best to include as amateur productions are not considered credits on spotlight. Here I have included three second year credits, however I will soon be adding my credits from my third year shows. For the accents and skills section I only included the ones I was absolutely confident I could do. I have made the mistake in the past putting skateboarding on my profile when I was not highly skilled on it, then I was submitted for a commercial which asked for skateboarding tricks. I had to tell my agent I could not do the tape which was not professional. I could harm my reputation and relationship with a future agent if I did this again.
I plan to develop the skill of horse-riding over the summer as I feel this will help my goal of being cast in a period drama. Characters often ride horses in these productions, and if I even had basic training I would be more castable than having had none at all.
When choosing my playing age, I asked a range of tutors, friends and family to find what the most common answer was. I felt this was a better option than gauging it myself as I cannot have an objective view. Finally, my headshot on this CV draft is an out of date one. I will replace it with my new headshot when they are available.
Working for myself
Many actors have non performance jobs alongside their acting career such as hospitality and retail work, however it has always been an ambition of mine to be employed as a performer full time. I am currently a gigging musician and a character performer for children’s parties, and after graduation I plan to turn these exploits into profitable businesses. This year, through doing this work, I have learned how to market myself on social media, build connections with venues and organisations, and skills needed to be self employed such as invoicing, negotiating fees, and logging my earnings with HMRC. I have also learned to advocate for my standards and needs at venues I have performed at. My plan for the future is to spend my weekdays auditioning for roles, finding connections and honing my craft in acting, then earn regular income on weekends through my party princess business during the day, and music gigs in the evening. This will be invaluable for my acting career as I will never go a week without performing and responding to a variety of different audiences. Below are the marketing materials I have created for these areas of employment, and examples of the work I have done.
Music marketing materials
Pictures 1, 2, 3 and 4 are posters I have made to advertise my upcoming gigs and market myself as a musician. I choose bright, contrasting colours to make them eye catching, and ensure all information is displayed clearly. I also like to include performance pictures as it shows people what I look like and what instrument I play.
Picture 5 is a screenshot of my music facebook profile. I chose to include a short segment of my music biography to give viewers a sense of what I do, and I post often about upcoming gigs and performance videos. Video 1 is the showreel I send to venues. This is useful as the venue can see my best work but also assess if my style suits their venue. I made the video only a minute long so venues hear enough to be interested but I leave them wanting more. Video 1
Character Performer Materials
Pictures 6 and 7 are pictures I plan to use to market my party princess business when I launch it. Video 2 will be a useful piece of content for the social media pages I plan to make in third year in order to establish my online presence as a party princess.
Video 2
Summative Statement
In the first project of year 2, The Rimers of Eldritch, I took on a role far from myself with the goal to become a more transformational actor. I was cast as Mary Windrod, an elderly mother who suffers from dementia. A challenge I had with this role was embodying the age and illness of the character truthfully without leaning into caricature. My individual process focused heavily on Mary’s given circumstances and relationships, however during a call with Jess I realised an element of my character I had yet to consider. Jess asked me what type of dementia Mary had, and I could not answer her. After this call, I began to research into Lewy bodies dementia, a condition where people have hallucinations, tremors, and memory loss. This aligned with Mary’s given circumstances and made her distress feel grounded in reality. My research process included reading medical studies on the condition, and reading accounts from people with the condition and their families to understand their experience. Watching videos of people with the condition helped me create a set of physical characteristics to ground my movement work on, and after this process I felt more confident portraying Mary’s character with a deeper understanding of the toll her condition took on her daily life.This project taught me the detail of research needed to understand and embody a character’s personal experience. I would like to test this method on characters within my casting bracket to find how my research can inform my portrayal of a character in a more subtle way.
The next assessment in my second year, the Shakespeare assessment, helped me battle a mindset challenge I had towards classical texts. Before the Shakespeare project, I had not considered classical acting to be a part of my future career. I was much more interested in contemporary theatre and I struggled to see myself in many characters of Shakespeare’s works. This was because most main characters come from nobility, and being from the northwest, I had never seen someone with my accent play those sorts of characters. I did not feel I could portray them truthfully without putting on an RP accent. Alex suggested I look into Northern Broadsides, a theatre company who perform Shakespeare with regional accents. This helped me realise regional accents in Shakespeare is not a new thing, with Helen Sheals performing Twelfth Night as Olivia in 1999. Alex wanted to challenge me by putting me in this exact role, and it took me a while to find my voice within the words. I found the exercise that helped me most was having two people hold me back whilst I delivered my text. The effort behind resisting the physical restriction freed my voice and I became less focused on saying the words prettily. This aligned with the feedback from my established repertoire project which read ‘An area of development would be to be brave and make the riskier acting choice, here it was the safer, more presentable ones.’
From this feedback, I decided to take some weight off the exact language in the text and instead let instinct lead my decisions. I allowed myself to be altered by the other person, and within that I felt much more present in scenes than I have been in previous projects. I felt this was incredibly successful and the assessment felt like some of my best work so far. This was reflected in my feedback which read ‘There were some very brave choices made, especially exposing her sexuality and playful side. These choices should be commended and celebrated.’
This was the project I found the most development in this year, and where I made a significant adaptation to my acting process. Before, I held the text with such reverence that I restricted myself to only the safe, first glance choice. With Twelfth night, I trusted the work I had done on Olivia’s given circumstances and relationships and became more playful with my instinctual reactions from my scene partner. I allowed myself to be larger than life and make unconventional choices that were surprising and interesting to an audience. This is an adaptation I will take forward into my future projects as my bold offers make me more interesting to work with and being more playful with my offers helps me feel less restricted and have more fun in a rehearsal room.
My biggest challenge this year has been finding material that suits its purpose, shows off my acting choices, and fits my voice and casting bracket. In my mock audition for Leeds Playhouse in Artistic Development, I picked a monologue from a character I could be cast in and suited me, but the play was part of the playhouse’s current season. I realised this was a poor choice as it meant the panel would know more about the play than me as they are currently working on it, and it is too obvious a choice for the audition. One monologue I did in scene study worked well for me, however being from Alice Birch’s Blank it was purposely made to have minimal distinguishing features. For a monologue that gives people a sense of who I am like my spotlight monologue reel, I wanted something I that showcased parts of my identity. I have begun making a list of northern playwrights as scenes written for regional accents sound more natural in my voice and the themes more often resonate with me. I have yet to find a piece I would want to have on my spotlight, but I plan to broaden my list of northern playwrights and read at least one play a week going forward.
When I do find a text, I will use what I have learned from Matt Looney’s screen classes to showcase myself within it. In a class looking at monologues to camera, Matt taught us how each line and each pause can be an opportunity to show glimpses of all the different characters we could play. This is important because casting directors tend to only watch around the first 30 seconds of a monologue, therefore, I want to show as many shifts as possible in those first 30 seconds. A key concept that stuck with me in Matt’s lessons was that a monologue used for this purpose does not have to be as you would perform it in the whole play, and to think of it as a condensed play within a minute. If the monologue was performed within a full play it may not make sense to be angry, upset, joyful and nostalgic all within a minute, but it serves the actor to do so in this scenario to show range.
This year has helped me understand what areas of the industry I am interested in, how to break into those areas, and the types of roles that suit me. Learning all of this, I now know how to market myself to make me the most employable. I plan to lean into my casting types for my third year headshots, pick a monologue that showcases my northern identity with many shifts that I can use to show my range, and to get in the habit of emailing new and existing contacts to keep my ‘solar system’ strong and utilise the advice of those around me.
