UNIONS PAN NEW CLASSES THAT ACT LIKE AUDITIONS

Two unions representing about 90,000 Hollywood actors are concerned about a new twist in their members’ perennial quest to break into films and TV shows.

Opening negotiations Thursday for a new three-year industry-wide performing contract, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said that producers, directors and casting directors may be offering union actors--only about 20% of whom make a living in their trade--the faint hope of screen roles in exchange for paid acting classes.

Some union officials expressed concern that acting workshops operated by casting directors may be replacing the small clubs and theaters where actors traditionally have waited to be seen by directors and casting directors.

In the words of one experienced actress, who asked not to be identified by name, attending the paid classes is tantamount to “paying for a job interview.” Casting directors, however, say that no such guarantee is made.

The controversy surrounding the issue became known last week as the two unions began negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

“We have had a rising tide of complaints. . . ,” said Mark Locher, public affairs director for the actors guild. “In order to be seen, (actors) need to pay to participate in a showcase, a workshop or a class. . . . All of these have been booming in the last three or four years. It’s a new development.”

The two unions are demanding an end to acting schools, talent showcases, workshops and seminars operated by producers, directors or casting directors who collect fees from aspiring performers who hope to get their names, faces and talent noticed.

However, one of show business’ leading casting directors counters that the unions are stepping out of line by trying to tell casting offices “how to perform their trade.”

Because the actors’ unions do not contract directly with casting directors, the unions are aiming their complaints at producers.

The actors guild has had two committees investigating the

workshops for the last year and a half, Locher said, with the cooperation of the Casting Society of America--a 165-member professional organization of casting directors founded in 1980.

“We have been meeting over the last year with casting directors trying to work this out,” Locher said.

“I wouldn’t call this a huge adversary issue.”

Casting director Mike Fenton, of the Fenton & Feinberg agency on the lot of 20th Century Fox studios in Century City, is one of the business’ most prominent members and one of the founders of the casting society.

Fenton said most casting directors in talent workshops offer only to “open the eyes” of performers to the techniques of landing jobs in show business. The presence of the casting director is no offer of employment, Fenton said.

Rules of membership in the Casting Society of America, Fenton noted, specifically bar casting directors from accepting teaching positions with schools that offer employment as an inducement to enroll.

Society members, who are allowed to designate themselves by a C.S.A. after their names, also are barred from participating in so-called “one-on-one showcases,” in which the casting director merely sits in the audience watching actors work, rather than engaging them in a teacher-student dialogue.

“I don’t know of a casting director who is getting rich doing these things,” said Fenton, who teaches classes himself. “I don’t need the little bit of funds they give me for going there once a week. If I thought I were not performing a good deed, then I wouldn’t be doing it. I could be home watching the Lakers lose.”

Many actors fear that speaking out about the practice could harm their careers, and most contacted asked not to be identified in the newspaper.

Said an actor: “The attraction basically is to get work and to get known. The one hope that a lot of actors and actresses go out for is to meet casting directors. I think it’s a rip-off.”

“I have this inherent feeling that one should not pay to audition,” said another actress.

Julian Ayrs, 34, a television actor who also books extras, bit players and some featured actors for Star Casting agency in Los Angeles, said the classes and workshops are the places where actors “are being discovered now.”

Paying the fees, usually about $20 for a three- or four-minute appearance at a casting director’s workshop, will not assure jobs for aspiring performers, Ayrs said, but some actors see the workshops as the best means of contacting prospective employers.

According to the actors guild’s Locher, traditional outlets for discovery, such as small clubs or legitimate theaters, have proliferated so much in Los Angeles in recent years that casting directors are hard-pressed to see all the unknown actors or actresses working in the area.

The traditional discovery system, Locher said, has been “supplanted with a paid system with a great potential for abuse,” refusing to name specific problems.

Advertisements for workshops abound in the show-business trade papers of Hollywood that are widely read by performers and aspiring entertainers. A three-month survey of the trade paper Drama-Logue found, for example, more than half a dozen different workshop ads featuring casting directors.

One full-page ad was headlined: “Top Casting Directors & Directors Who Will Teach You How To Get Work.” The ad features the names of more than 50 show-business professionals. In small print at the bottom of the page is a line reading, “The presence of a casting director is absolutely not a guarantee or promise of employment.”

Some actors and actresses report the paid classes and talent showcases have been helpful in obtaining work in show business.

“It’s getting to be quite a topic among actors,” said actor Joe Faust, 47, who has spent about $250 attending more than 20 such classes in the past eight months. The classes have resulted in one job for him, Faust said, paying him nearly $800.

“It’s a touchy subject,” Faust said. “If you look at it strictly as paying to be seen, it doesn’t sound kosher. But I like them, if you don’t approach them strictly from the standpoint of getting a job.”

Casting directors rarely have much say in choosing a movie or TV show’s principal performers, leading men or women such as Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep.

Where casting directors exhibit great influence, however, is in the selection of performers for supporting or lesser roles, the spots where most new actors and actresses break into TV or the movies.

Hollywood actress Jacquelyn Masche, 40, recently was offered a job by a casting director she had met in a $100, six-class workshop. “For two years, I felt like I wasted a lot of my time,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, it was money well spent.”