1. Submitting for an Audition
Dear (Artistic Director),
My name is Christine Quintana and we may have already met but I am terrified to assume you know who I am already or remember me from the one or two times we’ve spoken but then on the other hand I might end up looking like an idiot introducing myself again, but here it is, my name! on this letter! whether we’ve met or not I’m just going to provide my name, dammit, and I am a recent graduate of the UBC BFA Acting Program, and I really really want an audition am so in love with this script that I can’t stop thinking about it will do your dishes for a month just to get in the room and audition for you am worried I will never get to meet you am a really nice person! really! would very much like to be considered for an audition for your upcoming production, (Fabulous Show that I’ve Loved for Years). I am especially interested in any role at all, really! I love ensemble and would never turn my nose up at anything you’d like to offer me! I’ll even accept the role of box office attendant! If I’m not already working in your box office anyway, ha-ha! HA! just kidding I am an actor and I’m on the market, fresh and shiny and ready to be an artist in any role you are willing to cast me in the role of (Ingenue or Troubled Teen).
Thank you very much for your consideration and I totally understand if I never hear from you, I mean I’m sure it’s hard to choose who to see among the hundreds of talented young women in this city and I can totally see how you might be full and not able to fit me in, but maybe I’ll meekly try to crash your auditions if I don’t get a slot but actually end up sitting outside the building working up the courage to approach the audition monitor and then going home after an hour of deliberation but maybe you’ll have time for me and that would be great! and I look forward to hearing from you.
Enclosed is my headshot and resume and I wondered if I should give you my smiley ingenue headshot or the somewhat more seductive ones because I look like I’m 17 in the one I sent you and I can look older, really, if that’s what you want but of course I don’t know what you want so I just sent this one but if you need me to look older I can totally wear eyeliner or something just tell me what to do but here’s a picture of me looking hopeful and youthful in the meantime.
Thank you,
Christine Quintana
PS. I am just new at all this and I hope this cover letter is okay – should I have given more details? Less? Do I sound needy or presumptuous? I proofread it like 50 times, I swear, and if there’s any typos or incorrect information I will die of shame so I hope it’s all good and does anyone even read cover letters? I am fresh out of school and just doing my best and I hope my cover letter conveys my youthful enthusiasm because I really do love your company and the work you do and would love to be part of it and how do I possibly express that in a cover letter? I am going to now dump this into a mailbox like it’s on fire and then try to forget about everything I’ve just painstakingly written but please know that all this anxiety just comes from wanting to be a part of your show! I am totally normal, professional and well-adjusted, I promise!
Christine Quintana 
So true. Never sure what to leave in.
I put a quote from a review in a recent cover letter. Followed by an apology for tooting my own horn. Yeah. Poor choice?
Good question, Andrew! It’s hard to know where being confident ends and just plain old self-promotion begins. I would guess, though, you should never apologize for something you’re saying in your letter – after all, it’s something about you as an artist that you want them to know, and there’s no need to apologize for that!
Well, now they also know that I’m a good Canadian as well, at least. 😛
(and truth be told, I didn’t so much apologize as point out that I felt odd tooting my own horn like so. But yes.)