25 acting goals for auditions, the craft, voice work and an acting career

Acting goals for beginners

Beginner goals get you into a room with other actors and onto a stage, however small. If speaking in front of anyone is the hard part, public speaking goals start one step earlier.

• Take an 8 week acting class and go to every session.
• Learn one 1 minute monologue by heart.
• See 6 live plays this year.
• Read 20 plays this year.
• Work backstage on one community theatre show.

Audition and self-tape goals

Audition goals count the times you put yourself forward, because the casting choice is not yours. Walking into the room is the same nerve a musician feels before a recital, and violin goals count those performances the same way.

• Film 2 self-tapes a week for 3 months.
• Send 100 submissions this year. That is about 2 a week.
• Set up a self-tape corner with a tripod, one light and a plain wall, and film one test tape.
• Keep 3 contrasting monologues ready: one classical, one comic, one dramatic.
• Do 20 cold reads of scenes you have never seen, with a partner reading the other part.

Acting craft goals: monologues, scenes, accents and improv

Craft goals are the work between auditions, and each one ends in something you can perform or film.

• Learn 6 monologues this year, one every 2 months.
• Break 10 scenes into beats and write what your character wants in each one.
• Rehearse one two-person scene 10 times with the same partner, then show it in class.
• Practise one accent for 10 minutes a day for 30 days, and record the same minute on day 1 and day 30.
• Play 20 improv scenes in a class or at an improv jam.

Voice acting goals

Voice acting is acting with the voice alone, so its goals count reads, lines and demos.

• Read one ad script out loud 3 different ways every day for 30 days.
• Build 5 character voices and record 20 lines in each.
• Make one 60 second commercial demo.
• Record and edit 3 chapters of a public domain book.
• Send 50 voice auditions this year, about 1 a week.

Acting career goals for stage and screen

Career goals keep the big wish as a direction and count the steps under it. On stage you play to the back row, which is the whole job of a cheer squad in a stadium, and cheer goals count the practice behind it.

• Audition for 4 community theatre shows this year.
• Act in one student or indie short film.
• Write, shoot and edit your own 5 minute short film.
• Cut a 2 minute reel from 3 scenes you have filmed.
• Send your headshot, résumé and reel to 10 agencies.

What is a good acting goal?

A good acting goal is something you do, not something someone decides for you. A role is a casting choice. The tape, the audition and the monologue are yours. A review of 35 years of goal research found that specific, hard goals lead to higher performance than being told to do your best. "Book more work" is not specific. "Two self-tapes a week until March" is.

Keep the big goal as a direction: a lead in a show, an agent, a first paid voice job. Then put counts under it that you can hit in any week, cast or not.

Plan the moments that wobble. Research on if-then plans found a medium to large effect on reaching a goal from deciding in advance when and how you will act, across 94 tests. "If the audition scenes arrive, then I read them twice that night" is a plan. So is "If my hands shake in the waiting room, then I run my first line in my head."

How to track acting goals

Log every tape and every audition on the day it goes out. A review of 138 studies found that people who monitored their progress reached their goals more often, and that the effect was larger when progress was written down or reported to others.

Submissions, auditions, plays read and lines recorded are amounts that add up. Days you practise an accent or read copy out loud are a day count. If you want a short block to start with, creative challenge ideas are built the same way, as a small unit made every day.

Most auditions end in silence, and silence feels like nothing happened. A ring that closes a little with every tape you send shows the work that did happen.

Frequently asked questions

What are some examples of acting goals?

Film 2 self-tapes a week for 3 months. Keep 3 contrasting monologues ready. Send 100 submissions this year. Play 20 improv scenes. Make your own 5 minute short film. Each one is a count you control, whoever gets the part.

What are short term and long term acting goals?

A short term goal fits in a few weeks: one monologue learned, 8 tapes in a month. A long term goal takes a year or more: a lead role, an agent, a full reel. Write the long one down, then fill the weeks with short ones.

What are good voice acting goals?

Read one ad script 3 ways every day for 30 days. Build 5 character voices and record 20 lines in each. Make a 60 second demo. Then send auditions at a steady rate, such as 1 a week.