Scott Bakula Scours Back Stage's Casting Notices for Open Calls

In the new TNT series Men of a Certain Age, Scott Bakula stars as Terry, a middle-aged out-of-work actor looking to revive his career. In the first episode, Bakula's character attends a "crappy open call" for a Lifetime movie called Cry Bobby, after finding the casting notice in a copy of Back Stage. Watch a clip from the episode below, and expect to see more of Back Stage in upcoming episodes of Men of a Certain Age:

In a conversation with The Wrap last month, Bakula explained how he got his big break (and an agent) from a Back Stage casting notice. Read an excerpt from "A Quantum Leap Gave Scott Bakula His 'Hollywood Breakthrough'" below to learn more:

I did theater all the way through high school, and I was doing it in summer in St. Louis when I came home from college. Finally I quit school and I went to New York to try my luck there.

I’d never been to New York. I had a friend in St. Louis, and he was kind of advising me, because he had been to New York. He said, when you get to New York, you’ve got to buy a Back Stage, because that’s where they have all the auditions.

He also said there’s a new show opening soon in New York called "Shenandoah," and there are lots of male singing roles in it, so that might be a good show for me.

So I go to New York on a Wednesday. I think I had saved up $750, and I did that whole thing where I was staying with a friend of a friend. I open the Back Stage the day I get there, and lo and behold, on that Friday, there’s a non-union dinner theater audition for "Shenandoah."

So on Friday evening I was calling my parents saying, I’m gonna be playing the role of Sam, the Gentleman Caller, for a hundred bucks a week, room and board, in a dinner-theater circuit down in North Carolina.

That was way cool. But even better, there was an agent had come to see our final run-through before we left to go to North Carolina; he said, "Call me when you get back to town." I did, and he became my agent for the next 12 years or so. So that was kind of remarkable.

Men of a Certain Age also stars Ray Romano and Andre Braugher. Watch a promo montage for Men of a Certain Age below -- including additional scenes of Bakula as Terry (beginning at 4:04) and an extended version of his audition experience (5:18).

-- Daniel Lehman