Career Opportunities in Theater and the Performing Arts » (REVISED)

Careers in the performing arts can be onstage, backstage, and even offstage. From acting to designing to dance therapy, this revised edition profiles more than seventy careers, helping jobseekers discover how to get the position they want.

Updated material covers:
• Updated salary information
• New opportunities for women and minorities
• Completely revised appendixes containing professional and amateur organizations, academic institutions, teams, and publications.
Entries include:
• Actor/Actress
• Choreographer
• Playwright
• Casting Director
• Theatrical Press Agent
• Orchestra Management
• Lighting Person
• Critic
• Arts Council Director
• Dance Therapist.

Library Journal

Field, who runs a public relations and management firm focusing on the entertainment industry, offers a nicely produced compendium of 72 career opportunities in the performing arts, from actor to playwright to vocal coach. Readers will get the scoop on salary ranges, advancement prospects, geographical hot spots, employment trends, and required experience. Unlike most career guides, this one leaves the peruser feeling slightly uneasy, particularly when the profiles mention "low-paying or unpaid internships" and when so many note that the employment and advancement prospects are poor to fair. The outlook is slightly better with administrative positions. Bottom Line In the end, there's valuable information here: the appendixes contain addresses and web sites for schools, theaters, unions, and associations (Southern Methodist University's arts administration and theater programs are missing, however), and a nice, up-to-date bibliography is included. But Noel Coward's warning is not to be found: "Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington." Recommended for public libraries.-Larry Schwartz, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Moorhead Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.