Ready for career takeoff? Ebrima N'Dure sure is. Like many of this year's Actorfest NY attendees, N'Dure showed up to the Metropolitan Pavilion bright and early on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 23 to take advantage of the annual event's open call auditions and myriad skill-strengthening panels and exhibitors. Little did he know that after a brief visit to the Grant Wilfley Casting open call, he'd land a featured background role on Pan Am, the recently launched ABC dramatic series with a sumptuous 1960s aesthetic guaranteed to enhance the reel of any performer fortunate enough to find themselves aboard its friendly skies.
The Grant Wilfley Casting open call has been a staple of Back Stage's Actorfest NY for the last several years, and it's a relationship that has proved beneficial to both event attendees and casting personnel alike. "A lot of people who are new to the city and people we don't see all the time at our other open calls [attend Actorfest]. New faces to the city are always good for us," explains GWC senior casting associate Allison Hall, whose current TV projects include Boardwalk Empire, Royal Pains, and Smash, in addition to several high-profile feature films featuring New York units.
"We're always in a different location for Pan Am," Hall continues, referring to the show's globe-trotting weekly itinerary. "We needed a younger Haitian boy, but I was having a hard time finding someone who looked young but was still over 18."
Fortunately, Hall and her on-site team found their guy in Actorfest attendee N'Dure. Not two days after meeting him at their open call, they were sending the young actor to a wardrobe fitting, readying him for his first visit to the fabled "Jet Age." "We sent him to get fit, and he's working next week," Hall confirms.