Point Park University's Student-Run Newspaper

Point Park Globe

Point Park University's Student-Run Newspaper

Point Park Globe

Point Park University's Student-Run Newspaper

Point Park Globe

Point Park alum thrives in New York City, gives advice

Many Point Park University students dream of moving to New York City to pursue their careers. For Evan T. Walker, a Point Park musical theater graduate, his dream became a reality in July 2010, when he moved to New York City to follow his musical theater goals. Now, he is giving advice for other Point Park students who are willing to take the leap to the Big Apple.    His Point Park journey began in 2006 when he came to Pittsburgh to audition, but his audition was not for Point Park.”Strangely enough I was visiting Pittsburgh to look at Carnegie Mellon for school, and I met a few girls that danced at Point Park on the shuttle back from the airport,” he said in a phone interview on March 1.  “And they didn’t have enough cash to get onto the bus, so I gave them the money to get onto the bus. After, they asked if they wanted me to show them around Pittsburgh.”After Walker’s audition for Carnegie Mellon, he received his tour and found that he liked Point Park.According to professor Richard Keitel, it was Walker’s intelligence that helped him succeed at Point Park.”He was always very intelligent,” Keitel said in a phone interview Friday. “He was a very smart guy with a very inventive mind, but his intelligence I’d say was strongest, and he had a great, creative imagination.” John Shepard, who taught him advanced directing, agreed. “He was a terrific student. He was unique. He danced to his own rhythms, but he was creative, and I enjoyed working with him,” Shepard said. Walker’s hard work paid off when he was chosen to be featured in the Senior Showcase, which helped him land agency representation from Kazarian/Spencer/Ruskin and Associates. He made the move to New York City in July 2010.     His first few days in the city were all about securing a job to help him pay the rent. “It was really scary, you’re in a new city, I had just left employment in Pittsburgh, and I didn’t have any survival jobs to come to,” Walker explained. “So my first days in NYC were literally about pounding the pavement and trying to find some regular work, applying to different restaurants and bars, staffing agencies, ticket sales people.”Based off of his bartending experience in Pittsburgh, Walker landed a job at Cafe Luxembourg, where he is still employed today part-time as a bartender. “A lot of celebrities come in,” he said.  “I kind of lucked into that job.  For a while, that has been my only job.  And I’m still auditioning.” The agent that he gained from the showcase helped him navigate the tricky New York City audition scene. “That was another reason I chose to come to New York.  I got picked up by them and so not only did I get to get on ‘Backstage’ and look through auditions, but I also have this team of agents that are looking for auditions for me.” This agency led him to one of his first New York City auditions, for an international tour of “Avenue Q.”  It was the farthest Walker had gotten in the auditioning process.”It’s very fast-paced here, having to learn all of the sides and the music overnight,” Walker said.  “I went in and overall, I didn’t book the job, I didn’t get to go to Japan, but it was a great learning experience. The reason I didn’t get it was that I was too green, too fresh to the city.”Walker has held several performance jobs in NYC. He is a member of a company called the “Drafts” at a Lower East Side theater called Horse Trade, where he has performed in several original plays. He has also acted in a documentary and has done voiceover work for cartoons. To land jobs such as these, Walker stressed the importance of networking and attending class.”You think, ‘oh, I have a degree in this and I’m coming to NYC.’ The classes don’t stop. Not only are you taking the classes … from these seasoned professionals, but you are taking the classes to network with these people, the people who are in the class as well as the professionals,” Walker said.For aspiring NYC actors, Walker recommends looking into OneonOneNYC.com, an audition-only networking studio for “film, television and commercials.””That tool has gotten me into auditions for ‘Royal Pains,’ ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ ‘Nurse Jackie,’ ‘Gossip Girl.’ It’s just because I’ve been taking classes with casting directors,” Walker said. In addition to performing, Walker holds several other jobs to have several streams of income.  Most recently, he has begun working for an Internet startup company called GorillaSpot Media. Walker’s work with the company involves an app that they are developing called Cliptamatic, where users can take clips of licensed media from their favorite TV shows, tag them and send them to their friends. Walker works on the creative side of the venture. “I manage all of the content, I clip the video and watch TV for my day job,” he explained.  Walker additionally designs websites on the side, a skill which he says he learned from watching online videos. For Point Park students, he stresses the importance of versatility, not just in one’s craft, but with other skills as well.”It’s important to see that talent as not the only talent you have,” Walker said. “Every person at Point Park has their own personality and their own take on life, and I think everyone at Point Park as an artist should really look at other things they can do to make multiple streams of income when you’re an actor.”  

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