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Casting Calls in Philadelphia, PA
Ninety minutes from New York, with its own film office, its own studio and an Emmy-nominated casting company. The question here is not whether there is work — it is whether you are a Philadelphia actor or a New York actor who lives cheaper.
13 open calls · updated todayFree to submitScreen, theatre & corporateMany postings also take NY talent
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Posted Sep 3
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Posted Aug 26
The question every actor here is holding
Are you a Philadelphia actor, or a New York actor who lives cheaper?
Ninety minutes on the train is the defining fact about working here, and it cuts both ways. Here is the market answering it in its own words:
Observed on a live Philadelphia television casting call
The eligibility line
ONLY LOCAL & NY TALENT WILL BE CONSIDEREDA Philadelphia production, explicitly opening the door to New York actors
What proximity gives you
- ✓Real access to the largest market in the country, without New York rent
- ✓A day trip, not a move — you can audition there and sleep here
- ✓Two markets' worth of postings from one address
- ✓A genuine local market of your own underneath it
What proximity costs you
- ✕New York actors compete for your local roles too — the door swings both ways
- ✕New York offices may not treat you as local hire, so you absorb travel
- ✕The train fare and the lost day are real, per audition
- ✕Being "nearly there" can become a reason never to commit to either
The honest answer is that most working Philadelphia actors are both — local for the work that casts here, and prepared to travel for the work that does not. What does not work is treating Philadelphia as a waiting room.
The practical version
Get on file locally first. The local casting infrastructure here is genuinely good and considerably less crowded than New York's. Then treat New York as an extension rather than a destination — and check every posting for whether it says local hire only, because that single line decides whether the trip is worth taking.
Free, and almost nobody uses it
The film office posts cast calls with direct contacts
Most city film offices publish a production directory aimed at producers. Philadelphia's runs an actor-facing cast board — with the location, the shoot dates and a named contact with an email address on each listing.
Greater Philadelphia Film Office · cast listings
What a listing actually contains
Promotional short — "Young Ben"Maple Glen, PA · half day, four to five hours · non-union
$250–300Named contact and direct email published
Short film — two actorsYardley, PA · single Saturday · must provide own transportation
PaidNamed contact and direct email published
Compensation, location, dates, and a person to email. That is more than most paid platforms give you, and it is free. Bookmark it and check it weekly — this is the single most underused resource in the market.
Film offices list; they do not vet. Verify any production yourself before committing time or travel.
The market's top casting office, and it is free to join
A free talent database — and they say so twice
Philadelphia's principal casting company has been Emmy-nominated, has won an ARTIOS award, and casts the region's biggest productions. It also runs an open, free talent portal — which is not a combination you find in most markets.
Heery Loftus Casting · Diane Heery, CSA and Jason Loftus, CSA
The Casting Access Portal
Private
one casting office's own database
$0
cost to actors
All types
open to everyone, not just professionals
An interactive database that clients search against real casting needs, with up-to-the-minute messages to talent on file. Established 1997, thirty-plus years of combined casting experience, with credits including The Sixth Sense, Silver Linings Playbook, Creed, Split, Mare of Easttown and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Both principals started as actors — one with credits including Dawson's Creek and The Sopranos before switching sides of the table. That is not trivia; it tells you something about how the room runs.
But get the two halves right, because they are different
The portal is open to everyone. A general audition is not — their own guidance states your work must already be known to them, through stage or film performances or their open call process.
So: join the portal now, and treat a general audition as something you earn later. Confusing the two is how people waste a submission.
And the distinction this market gets wrong constantly
A casting office is not an agent. Being on file, and even being in the room, does not mean you are represented. The two get conflated in Philadelphia more than almost anywhere, partly because the casting company is more visible than the agencies.
Their own description of the market is worth carrying: a "mini-New York" with a lot of film, TV and commercial work at any given time — busy, if not a hub on the scale of New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta. That is an honest characterisation from the people who cast it.
Observed on live postings, August 2026
What the work pays — including the theatre
Philadelphia is one of the few markets in this build where screen and stage both pay enough to appear in the same table. Both are listed here.
Live Philadelphia postings · August 2026 · illustrative, not a schedule
Philadelphia rates
Screen
General extras, same productionOn a call where featured roles were paid
Unpaid
Student feature$500 for all six shoot days
~$83 / day
Featured extra, SAG rateTelevision series
$224 / day
Promotional short, principalHalf day, four to five hours, non-union
$250–300
Independent feature, supportingStated minimum
$1,000+
Theatre
Non-union holiday productionStipend, paid in two instalments · minimum $325 per rehearsal week
$1,500–2,000 total
Equity SPT contractSmall Professional Theatre, tier 6 · weekly minimum
$642 / week
Look at the theatre rows against the screen rows. An Equity SPT contract at $642 a week is steadier money than most screen work in this market — which is why the theatre scene here is a career rather than a hobby, and why Actors' Equity matters as much as SAG-AFTRA.
One structure to note: a live Philadelphia television call paid featured extras at SAG rate while all other extras were unpaid on the same production. Read which category you are being offered before you accept the day.
The structural fact every local knows
Pennsylvania's credit is capped, so the work is boom and bust
Unlike Georgia's uncapped programme, Pennsylvania allocates a fixed amount each year. When it is committed, it is committed — and productions that miss it go elsewhere or wait.
The consequence is predictable dry spells. Not a market in decline; a market with a rhythm. Working actors here plan around it, and knowing it exists stops you reading a quiet month as a personal failure or as evidence the market has collapsed.
Worth checking before you make plans
Whether the cap has been exhausted for the current fiscal year is a real, checkable fact with real consequences for the next few months of casting. Verify the current rate, the in-state spend threshold and the cap status against the state directly — we are not publishing figures we have not confirmed.
Pittsburgh draws on the same capped pool. The two cities are not really competing for it — the productions that come here are usually here for Philadelphia specifically — but the ceiling is shared.
The market nobody writes about
Medical, pharmaceutical and corporate video
Philadelphia sits at the centre of a very large pharmaceutical and healthcare corridor, and that generates a steady stream of on-camera work that appears in no casting directory's editorial.
The tell is visible in the live postings themselves: calls seeking a patient and a patient's husband with specific ages, specific ethnic backgrounds and an authentic accent requirement. That is pharmaceutical and medical content casting to a brief, and it is a category most actors never think to pursue.
Why it is worth taking seriously
It is unglamorous, it is reliable, and it pays properly. It also casts real-looking people across a wide age range rather than a narrow commercial type — which makes it one of the more accessible categories in the market if you do not fit a conventional casting bracket.
Where the work is posted
Beyond this board
Greater Philadelphia Film OfficeFree to read, with direct contacts. Compensation type is noted, not a figure.Theatre Philadelphia — jobs and auditionsPublic, free, and actually current. The busiest local board we found.The Casting Access PortalFree to join — they say so twice. One casting office’s own private database.Actors’ Equity — how to joinThe theatre scene here is a real career. Audition notices are members-only.Walnut Street Theatre — castingOpen calls and EPAs each spring, in Philadelphia and New YorkSAG-AFTRA franchised agentsSelect “Philadelphia” — the local covers eastern PA, southern NJ and Delaware.Local agency open callsOne runs the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month. No fee is stated — ask before you go.Philadelphia agent, or New York?Union jurisdiction follows where the work takes place, not where you live.
The sentence that protects you
SAG-AFTRA franchises agents, not managers. A real agent earns commission on work you book — never a fee from you up front. And be careful with local directory listings: several Philadelphia entries labelled "casting agency" are talent agencies, or the reverse. They are different businesses doing different jobs.
Quick answers
Common questions
Do New York casting offices treat Philadelphia actors as local hire?
Often not — which means you absorb the travel. Check every posting for the local hire line, because it is the difference between a viable audition and an expensive one. Philadelphia postings, by contrast, frequently accept New York talent explicitly.
How do I get background work here?
Join the local casting portal — it is free, open to all types, and run by the office that casts most of the region's significant productions. Then watch the film office cast listings, which post direct contacts.
Does the theatre scene offer real paid work?
Yes. Equity SPT contracts here run to a weekly minimum, and non-union productions pay stipends in the low thousands for a run. For steadiness, theatre outperforms most screen work in this market.
Can you make a living acting in Philadelphia?
Some people do, and it usually looks like a combination — local screen work, theatre contracts, corporate and medical video, and New York when it comes up. Very few make it on one of those alone.
Nearby and related
Other markets within reach
Productions also shoot across southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware County, the suburbs, and into New Jersey and Delaware. Filter for the region rather than the city.
One alert, two markets
Set a Philadelphia alert and include New York if you are willing to take the train. It is the only pair in the Northeast where that genuinely works — and a lot of Philadelphia postings accept New York talent anyway.
Set a Philadelphia alert✓Free to browse and submit✓No card required✓We never charge for an audition