What is a theatrical agent?

What is a theatrical agent?

Theatrical agents represent actors for work. They have a subscription to something called the breakdown service. A breakdown service is something that lets agents know what roles are available for actors out there in the casting world. They probably see their breakdowns every morning and go through the different requests for talent. They might see a breakdown that says, "We need a black guy, thirty to forties, who can play a doctor or who can play a sharecropper or whatever the thing is. "Then my talent agent will call me up and say, "Hey, Dan, I got this audition for you. It's tomorrow at whatever time and you'll be playing this guy that they described in the breakdown service. "They represent you for commercials, television, theatrical work, sometimes for private industrial work, i.e. for corporations who might want to do a video. They earn their money by taking a little piece of mine whenever I work.