The Emotional Type Audition Technique · for working actors
Turn callbacks into bookings
Learn the 3-Step Emotional Type Audition Technique and walk into the room as the person casting is already looking for, then stay unforgettable after you leave.
- Live on Zoom
- 3 hours
- Second Saturday of each month
- 10 a.m. Mountain Time
- $199
Secure checkout with PayPal. Not ready yet? Book a Discovery Session and pay what you can.
You got the callback. Now what?
- Do you nail the callback but never book the job?
- Do you constantly compare yourself to other actors, deciding someone else is going to get the job before you even show up?
- Do you panic when a last-minute audition comes in because you have no time to prep?
- Does the camera make you nervous, so you forget your lines?
- Do you have to constantly push your agents to get you seen for more roles?
You don’t need to show up trying to guess what the casting team wants. You need a way to prepare that helps you make clear, personal choices and stay present in the scene.
In this three-hour class, I’ll teach you a practical approach to understanding what drives a character and how to use that understanding in your audition.
What’s an Emotional Type?
An Emotional Type is more than a physical type or a broad character label. It’s the emotional strategies you use to get what you need, handle conflict and protect what matters to you.
Each of us has four major Emotional Types. In order to survive, you’ve had four major emotional lessons to master in this lifetime, and you’ve created strategies to come through each conflict wiser and stronger. Those strategies show how you process emotions, solve problems and turn them into truthful behavior.
When you learn to recognise them, you enter characters from a specific, shared emotional truth, including roles that may not look like you. The focus moves away from pleasing the casting director to a truthful, unselfconscious performance that is immediate, specific and organic.
How you look will change, but your Emotional Type is with you throughout your lifetime.
The 3-Step Emotional Type Audition Technique
01Step one
Identify one of your four Emotional Types
Move beyond a vague archetype and explore what drives the character: what they want, what they fear, and how they get what they need. “A fierce corporate mogul who slays in the boardroom” is a starting point. A more specific Emotional Type might be:
The goddess with an edge uses silence to intimidate the opposition, and subtle investigative reporting to find their weaknesses. Unapologetic about her beauty, she uses it to distract you from her dangerous physical prowess that starts and finishes wars.
Specificity gives you something playable.
02Step two
Learn what kills auditions, and fix it
When the camera watches you trying to remember lines, you’re not listening and responding moment to moment, and the performance feels contrived. The camera is interested in the psychology underneath the words: what you want, what you’re hiding, and what you’re doing to your scene partner. The text is the mailbox you send to your scene partner to hide your true intentions.
You’ll learn my 9-times-fast memorization technique, so the lines stop taking over your attention and the homework becomes invisible.
03Step three
Work the scene from the point of view of your Emotional Type
Your Emotional Type gives you an objective in the scene, precise actions, and it establishes what triggers the conflict within you. You understand this Emotional Type because it comes from you. Not the text, not the breakdown, but you.
What you’ll learn
- Identify one of your four major Emotional Types to understand which roles are right for you
- Use emotional connection to prepare a scene quickly
- Explore the protagonist’s conflict, choices and change
- Practice a memorization approach that keeps you present
- Audition with confidence and turn CallBacks into Bookings
- Tap into your emotions easily for auditions and on set
- UnLock Roles you were Born to Play
What to bring
A side, or a video of a favorite scene from a film or show made in the last five years. Choose three scenes:
- Only one can feature a lead character who looks like you physically (age, race, gender).
- The other two feature protagonists you identify with emotionally, even though they don’t share your physical type.
For each scene, be ready to identify the protagonist, the emotional conflict, how the protagonist changes by the end of the scene, and how the protagonist gets what they need.
Hilary’s Emotional Type strategy
When I called April, it was after I had been particularly frustrated. My scenes were cut from a career-making, high-profile film. April said, “Well, why don’t you write something for yourself?” I did April’s DreamingOutLoud Emotional Type Technique and I realized that an idea that I had was the perfect vehicle for me to not only play one of my chords, but also something I was really passionate about. So she put me on a writing schedule.
Through this process, what I’m starting to learn is that outer experience is an expression of inner reality. As my inner reality shifted, my experience in the business began to shift. I understood that I’m not an actor who has to wait around for someone to choose her, waiting around for the phone to ring, doing her best at auditions and giving away all her power.
April is the person who was able to make me realize what I have to bring to the table and how I can put that forward. So I am driving the direction of my career and not getting buffeted about by whatever trend comes up or whatever job happens to become available or whatever people think black girls are in right now. Because I’m not here for a trend, I’m here for the long haul.
So, BadAsses: April, this is your leader. Go find her, be bold, be brave, stand up for yourself & stand up for your dreams.
Hilary WardActor/Writer/Producer (The Fosters, Sharp Objects, NCIS)
Careers like Susan Heyward’s
‘The Boys’ star Susan Heyward has been a series regular on nearly every show she’s worked on. April teaches the Emotional Type Audition Technique approach to build careers like Susan’s.
Actors who work all the time consistently deliver complex performances because they use the full range of their unique Emotional Type. Careers like Jeffrey Wright’s, Sophie Okonedo’s, Chadwick Boseman’s, Judi Dench’s, Maggie Smith’s and Anthony Hopkins’ don’t happen randomly. They happen because these artists choose roles that sit in the middle of their Emotional Types.
Read Susan’s StoryTelling Circle story, “Permission to be a StoryTeller”
What actors say about working with April
April demystifies everything. She has this innate spidey-sense when you’re overwhelmed & she steps right in and offers this level of support that is right on the money. She knows what you need right when you need it the most.
Just signed with new agents & managers this week. Couldn’t have done it without April’s sage advice & incredible coaching. You should have seen my cover letter to these people. Apparently it blew them away & I had an actual CHOICE among agents who wanted to represent me. All down to April.
My solo show sold out last month and I produced and directed 2 one acts in May. In the past month I’ve had callbacks for Gotham and Limitless, 3 print ad look sees, 2 commercial auditions. Oh, and great head shots and a cool website and an enhanced wardrobe, etc. This is just the beginning of the new ME, so excited for more of your coaching and mentoring… 10 years as an actor and this has been the best year in my career… SO FAR!!
April will keep you accountable & make you feel like your goals are possible. Even when she kicks your ass, you know that it’s in your best interest. Break legs!
A creative tour-de-force, April gave me specific skill sets I could implement immediately in the real world to work, create & live a fulfilling life as an artist. She hones in on what sets you on fire. And she makes you laugh. A lot. And having a sense of humor in this industry is the key to thriving in it.
I wanted to learn what April knows because of her leadership, her energy, her stamina, her vision… the way she thinks outside the box.
More stories from April’s clients are coming soon.
Why you need the Emotional Type Audition Technique
Daily quotes have been replaced by per-episode salary minimums. Residuals are disappearing. But you still have power as an actor.
Then
When I first started acting, the more you worked, the higher your daily quote became. Actors’ careers grew in relationship to their growth and experience.
Now
Then SAG agreed to salary minimums. On primetime TV, this increased what the star of the show made per episode to as much as six figures, while supporting cast, recurrings and guest stars were stuck with flat five-figure salaries per episode. It’s common for the star to make $350K per episode while supporting principals make $25–40K and recurring or guest stars make a flat $8,500.
That’s a far cry from what a seasoned actor made once their quote was no longer honored. You could go from making $2,200 per day for one episode to a flat $8,500 for eight days of work: a 50% loss in income and residuals.
On streaming platforms the SAG minimum is so low that series regulars on Emmy-winning shows were waiting tables. And here’s the kicker: most streaming deals are set up to eliminate residuals altogether. I have clients who have been on Prime, HBO, Netflix and FX and have never seen a residual check.
Imagine a world without residuals. Just auditioning is not enough.
You need a strategy to make a living as an actor. The Emotional Type Audition Technique is the way through: when you position yourself to play characters who don’t necessarily share your age, race or gender, you create more opportunities to audition. When there are no physical limitations to your craft, your career becomes more expansive, and complex, career-making roles are at your fingertips.
The way you look will change each year. But your Emotional Type is a constant that will help you create a sustainable, lucrative and fulfilling career that no AI can duplicate.
Meet your coach, April Yvette Thompson
Tony-winning producer, actor, writer & founder of TheDreamUnLocked. April was on the Tony-winning producing teams for the 2017 Best Revival, August Wilson’s Jitney, and the 2012 Best Revival, Porgy & Bess. As SimonSays Entertainment Director of Development she produced the Sundance features Blue Caprice, Mother of George and Gun Hill Road.
She wrote, produced and starred in her Miami Trilogy of plays, Good Bread Alley and Liberty City (Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Lortel nominations & a Jeff Award), at New York Theatre Workshop. Film and TV: BULL, Blue Bloods, Gotham, The Exonerated, Law & Order and more. Education: Vassar College & Rutgers University.
Class details
- Format
- Live virtual class on Zoom
- Length
- 3 hours
- When
- Second Saturday of each month, 10 a.m. Mountain Time (9 a.m. Pacific, 11 a.m. Central, noon Eastern)
- Price
- $199, with bonus recorded webinars
- Next step
- The introductory class is a prerequisite for the full 12-week Emotional Type Technique MasterMind.
Having trouble with PayPal? Email April.
Watch before you book
April explains what an Emotional Type is and why it matters in a free class.
Frequently asked questions
Is the class in person or virtual?
It’s a live Zoom class. You can dial in or log on from anywhere in the world.
How do I get started?
Reserve your place in the next monthly introductory class. It’s 3 hours, on the second Saturday of each month at 10 a.m. Mountain Time, for $199.
What makes this different from a traditional acting class?
Most acting classes teach you how to audition using acting techniques instead of business strategies that address our industry as it exists right now. The Emotional Type Technique is a business strategy that helps you find more roles, not limited to your physical type. Your Emotional Type encompasses the full range of the human condition, and it stays the same throughout your career.
Does the class guarantee bookings?
No class can guarantee a booking. This class gives you a repeatable way to prepare, make specific choices, and bring more of yourself to the audition.
What does it cost to keep going?
Introductory recorded classes start at $15. The one-day live class is $199 and comes with bonus recorded webinars. The 12-session MasterMind is nine monthly payments of $355.
What’s it like to work with April?
Fun. Like that one aunt that is brilliantly unfettered in her opinions and interests. Well travelled and free of heart, April is the teacher who wants you to transform your world view: from an unimportant cog in the wheel of this business, buffeted about by every new fad, to the CEO of your career.
How can I contact you?
Email April@thedreamunlocked.com or use the contact page. April aims to reply within one business day.
I’m having trouble paying with PayPal. What now?
Email April@thedreamunlocked.com and April will help you reserve your seat another way.
Questions and answers are coming soon.
You have more to bring to the room than a perfect reading
Your appearance may change. Your Emotional Type is a deeper part of how you understand people, conflict and the choices they make. Learn to use it, and explore roles beyond the ones you’ve been told to expect.