About Us

Auditions Are Work is a grassroots organizing group of SAG-AFTRA members. Our goal is to advocate for the value of the labor performers do while auditioning and self taping and for the enforcement of the Audition Pay provision in the SAG-AFTRA TV/Theatrical Contract. Our mission is to educate our fellow union members on our contracts, advocate for the rights of SAG-AFTRA members to shape them, and build performer power.

Auditions Are Work has been covered in The New Yorker, Jacobin, Indiewire, NPR’s Airtalk, Vulture, and The Hollywood Reporter.

Auditions Are Work does not represent the official stance of SAG-AFTRA.

Meet Our Founding Volunteers

Vanessa Chester (she/her)

Hello! Vanessa Chester, here! I have been a proud member of SAG- AFTRA since the tender age of three, that’s more than 90 percent of my life!

I’m most known for my roles as “Becky” in Alfonso Cuaron’s A Little Princess and as Kelly Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum’s daughter in Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Some of my lesser-known accomplishments are as a sitting member of both the LA and National Self Tape Committee, The Responsible Strike Preparedness Committee, the iActor Committee, and of course, a Co-Founder of Auditions Are Work!

Being the daughter of Guyanese immigrants, first generation American and first to attend college in my family, access to opportunity, education, social justice, and following your dreams are subjects that are near and dear to my heart. I am fully dedicated to raising the standards of living/quality of life for the 98 percentile of actors who depend on survival jobs to make ends meet. We deserve the same financial security, work/ life balance, in addition to upward mobility that is guaranteed in non-performance-based industries.

The time I’ve dedicated to Auditions Are Work over the last year has revolutionized the way I view myself, my value as a performer, and the immense creative contributions the performer community continues to provide the entertainment industry. It has made me approach my art with far more confidence and made my work more purposeful and intentional. I hope that after you leave our page, you feel more informed than when you initially visited and more importantly, feel empowered to advocate for yourself because you are worth it! IG- @vanessalchester

Tavi Gevinson (she/her)

I’m an actor and a writer who’s been in SAG-AFTRA since 2012 and Actors Equity since 2014. I’ve worked most recently on HBO Max’s Gossip Girl and the movie Shortcomings. I’ve performed on and off-Broadway, at Steppenwolf Theatre, and at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. I’ve written essays for New York, the New Yorker, The Believer, and Poetry, and scripts for Paramount and Audible. I recently wrote about Audition Pay for the Hollywood Reporter. From 2011-2018, I edited the online publication Rookie, which I also founded. Rookie published five print anthologies and, since shuttering, has been archived by the Library of Congress.

I’ve been acting professionally since I was a teenager and long saw my work as more of a passion than a job. I thought that this view made me more of an artist, and that I was too lucky to be critical of bad working conditions or unfair wages. Learning about the Audition Pay provision has taught me so much about the value of performers’ work and the power of grassroots organizing. As a writer who once ran an independent publication, I see Audition Pay as reframing an understanding of work by artists of all kinds. I want artists to be paid fairly and have meaningful opportunities that don’t just prey on their desire to create. I also care about creating transparency in industries where freelancers work in isolation and competition. I want performing to be a viable career. Auditions Are Work has given me a path toward these goals and a community of amazing performers and advocates. @tavitulle / tavigevinson.world

Thomas Ochoa (he/they)

I’m Latinx, gender-fluid, and proud to be a professional actor and drag queen. I have a degree in Architectural History and despite qualifying for union benefits, work as a flight attendant on the side to avoid the stress of needing to meet ever-skyrocketing eligibility minimums year after year.

I’ve been a member of SAG-AFTRA since 2016, and hold a seat on the Los Angeles Local Board. I am Vice-Chair of the LA Local Communications Committee, a member of the National Communications Committee, and serve on the LA Local NextGen Performers (NGP), Strike Preparedness, and Ethnic Employment Opportunities (EEO) Committees. As a labor activist, I am passionate about union literacy and improving communication between SAG-AFTRA and its members.

I co-founded Auditions Are Work to be a fierce advocate for fair compensation, to empower performers to embrace their identity and power as workers, and to resist the systems and social conditioning that make it difficult for our community to advocate for its full worth. As a labor activist I have been featured inThe New Yorker, Jacobin Magazine, Indiewire, LAist, and on NPR and More Perfect Union. IG - @teeocho / @pocketturlington

Christian Telesmar (he/him)

I have been an eligible member of SAG-AFTRA since 2011 working in the Seattle Local and officially joined the union in 2014 before moving to Los Angeles, CA. I sit on the Los Angeles Local Board, the Orientation committee, the Responsible Strike Preparedness committee and the Audition Pay Workgroup in the LA Local.

My background is an MFA in Acting from the University of Washington, and an MBA from Purdue University Global, as well as nearly a decade of higher education and secondary education - as a teacher, program director and mentor for youth in the performing arts.

Currently, I'm a business owner of a social justice board game called Disparity Trap and am actively performing on stage (member of AEA), TV and Film.

My passion has always been the intersection between storytelling, education, business and Equity/Inclusion/Social Justice. In many ways, I found myself exclusively in each of these sectors on my professional path before combining them into the one lane they co-exist in today.

I'm excited and honored to be a founding member of this grassroots movement of SAG-AFTRA members seeking to educate our fellow unionists on their contractual right to a living wage.

Caryn West (she/her)

A SAG-AFTRA & Actors Equity member since 1979, I serve on two SAG- AFTRA committees and two subcommittees. I’ve also been a bicoastal acting teacher for the last 35 years, focusing on ever-evolving auditioning practices, scene study, and financial literacy. I teach privately now, but taught for many years at established studios and BFA & MFA programs. I’m honored to teach for the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory as of 2023.

I self tape myself and many others frequently. I am very concerned about the alarming volume of labor, equipment, edited tape and delivery demands, actor provided readers, and more expenses now required to audition. And the industry wants us to continue doing so as the new norm. For most, it is also a mental health challenge and unsustainable.

I have experienced the severe diminishment of wages and residuals from newer contracts. I have a SAG pension, from network tv and union commercial work, and an Equity pension from 3 Broadway shows, 2 tours, and many regional theater jobs. But I fear my students and younger colleagues will never vest a pension or qualify for union health coverage without Audition Pay.

When I first heard about Audition Pay, I was admittedly skeptical. The status quo of how I auditioned for so many years was my limiting belief. But as I learned more, and determined the positive aspects and amazing financial repercussions for our community, I leapt to help. We’ve had audition pay in our TV/Theatrical contract for decades. We just need enforcement from our union. B.A. Communications/Stanford, M.F.A. Acting/Temple.