The Good, The Bad and the downright Mad

In recent weeks, I have had information from several confidential sources regarding the unsavoury and immoral practices of specific and to remain un-named organisations that apparently prey on passionate and enthusiastic individuals such as ourselves, actors and performers. Why has this information been passed to me? Because we are all in the same line of business and we tend to look-out for each-other.

None-the-less, we all are in an industry that (like nearly all others) can take advantage of our hopes and dreams and turn them against us. I am no doubt just as guilty as anyone else at falling victim, I have just been lucky to avoid any serious involvements. I personally, became involved with a promised new TV series. Shortly thereafter I was able to learn that the script itself wasn't written, the plot wasn't really established in anyway, but for those of us involved, we decided to have a little fun with it and started trying to start something up ourselves. Slowly we realised that this wasn't going to go anywhere and that the one 'In Charge' was having trouble staying in charge of himself let alone anything else, that the concept faded into mists and ghosts.

I was lucky. Others are not so. Some of the stories I have heard read more like a Stephen King horror/thriller than real life, filled with tyrants, cults and sexual perversions. Something that you think could only exist in the mind of a doped out script-writer may be far closer to home than you realise.

While I feel hesitant to drop names of the guilty, I have heard more than enough and need to spill it out somewhere. I hope you will humour me in this and allow me to 'vent' a little through this medium.

I have a four year old daughter who is already wanting to get on-stage. She is so friendly, loving and energetic it is incredible. She really loves life. To think of her getting involved with some seedy production company and being scarred for life either physically or in any other way fills me with dread. I do not want her, nor anyone else to experience life in the hands of mad-men and lunatics.

In other discussions on this and other sites, I have heard more than enough times, life is about taking risks so just do it. Crap! If that is the case, then why look both ways before crossing the road? To avoid the risk for Byron's sake! So why should it be any different with anything else that we do? While I may be taking an extreme point of view on this issue, I am deliberately overstating the case to highlight a point.

Would I go into a production without knowing something about what it is about? What choices I have? Who might be directing and their reputation? Hell no, and I certainly would not consider joining an agency or production company without knowing something before hand apart from the wonderful promises that are made to attract you in. How are we to know that we aren't lambs to the slaughter if we don't research our options?

There are madmen out there and that is no exaggeration, and some of them are even on the doorsteps of Perth Residents! Yes, quiet sleepy little old Perth has more than it's fair share of skeletons in the closet. Every city in the world will have at least one or two nuts, out to make a quick buck at the cost of someone else's dignity or security.

What is my purpose in this? A warning. Others have already fallen into the web and suffered. Don't let the next one be you. Research your options. Forewarned is forearmed, cliché I know, but truth.

Aude sapere - "Dare to Know"