Judgment Day

Today marks a milestone in the lives of 10 of UC Irvine’s most promising actors--eight graduate performers and two undergraduates--who are about to learn whether their years of training have paid off.

At a showcase this afternoon in a Manhattan theater, 200 agents and casting directors will gather to judge their performances. Callback sheets will tell the actors how much interest they’ve stirred and whether they’ve jump-started their careers.

“They must focus on showing what they can do in three minutes, because that’s all the time they have,” said drama professor Robert Cohen, the head of UCI’s graduate directing program and the one staging the performances.

“You can’t have them creating the role of Hamlet,” he added in a recent interview in Irvine. “You can’t do that in three minutes, so you don’t even try. What you try is what can be quickly perceived: Does this person have talent?”

The temptation to choose “wonderful material that doesn’t really propel them toward a career must be resisted,” Cohen said. So for the allotted time of 30 minutes, he has paired the actors in 10 short scenes carefully selected from such plays as “Betrayal,” “Life Under Water,” “Prelude to a Kiss,” “Family of Mann,” “Dwarf Star” and “Date With a Stranger.”

UCI has done showcases since 1987, though originally just in Los Angeles. In 1989, it formed the Actors Training Alliance with Temple University in Philadelphia and Southern Methodist University in Dallas to do New York showcases as well.

Today’s is being presented at New York University by the alliance’s successor, New Leagues, a consortium of 10 universities and conservatories whose training programs are ranked among the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report. Besides 12th-ranked UCI, the consortium includes such performing arts powerhouses as UCLA, Carnegie Mellon University, the North Carolina School of the Arts and the University of Washington.

UCI will reprise its New York showcase May 18 at the Coast Theatre in Los Angeles.

“In the last three years,” Cohen said, “I can tell you that as a direct result of the showcases, every one of our graduating actors in the master of fine arts program has gotten either their [Actors] Equity card or an agent or both within a year. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to have a career. Nobody can promise that. A career must be built over time.”

The Los Angeles showcase is expected to have about 100 agents and casting directors in attendance. UCI associate professor Eli Simon, who heads the graduate acting program, will supervise the L.A. showcase. “The audience tends to be different from the one on the East Coast,” Simon said. “In New York, they’re more theatrically inclined. Out here they’re much more oriented to film and television.

“But the bottom line for the actors is exposure. It would take a lifetime to be seen by 300 agents. And the most important thing is, they’re looking for talent. They’re looking for the crop of new faces that comes through every single year, and they never tire of looking. That’s what’s so amazing.”

The actors sometimes know exactly what they want to pursue--theater or TV and film--and where they want to live. More often they don’t.

“Most of them will know better when they see the bids,” Simon said. “Many will get bicoastal agents who have a preference for basing them on one coast and bringing them out to the other for a particular casting call.”

Because of the large amount of exposure, one of this year’s UCI graduate actors, Alan Mingo Jr., found himself torn between doing the showcases or accepting a small onstage role in the national touring company of “Rent” while understudying Angel, one of the musical’s major characters.

“He was tormented,” Cohen said. “It’s a tossup as to which is a better career boost--landing your first big gig on a national tour or being seen by 300 agents in New York and Hollywood.”

The “Rent” offer took the toss. Cohen understood and approved: “You can’t turn down a real role for what is essentially an audition. But there’s really no right answer.”