How much filming actually happens here
This is the number every other page on this subject leaves out, and leaving it out is how people end up disappointed rather than merely early.
The City of Sacramento counts its own film permits and publishes the total. For calendar 2025 it looks like this.
Two people who work here put the same thing two ways, and both belong on this page. Local professionals told a Sacramento newsroom this summer that the region lacks the steady work, financing and depth of trained labour to be a durable industry. Actors struggle to keep sharp without consistent auditions. A location manager in the same piece said the opposite thing about the same place: the community is welcoming in a way the bigger markets are not. “When we're working on projects of similar scope in larger markets, it's the opposite.”
Both are true. The first is why you cannot make a living on Sacramento screen work alone. The second is why people stay.
What actually shoots here
Every guide to this city opens with Lady Bird. Lady Bird shot in 2016. Here is something more recent and more useful.
In February 2024, Paul Thomas Anderson closed downtown Sacramento for four days to shoot One Battle After Another for Warner Bros., with Leonardo DiCaprio and Regina Hall. H Street was shut between 6th and 10th, along with stretches of 7th, 8th, 9th and Jazz Alley, for simulated gunfire, car chases, crashes and helicopter work.
The city put numbers on it afterwards. Sixteen shooting days, $5.3 million in local spend, 172 local hires, 758 local crew days, and $915,018 on hotels across 3,786 room nights.
Those were reported as local hires, alongside a separate count of local crew days. Background casting was not specified. We do not know how many of those jobs went to performers rather than to grips, drivers and production assistants.
A studio feature closing four downtown blocks is an event, not a market. It is worth knowing about because it demonstrates the city can host one. It is not evidence of a steady stream of acting work.
The film office keeps a public credits list, and its shape tells you more than any single title. The 2024 entries are the Anderson feature, an independent called Don't Answer, a Toyota commercial, a Goodyear commercial and a city promo. The 2023 entries include the Michael Cera and Kristen Stewart film Sacramento, an episode of HGTV's House Hunters, and an enrolment video for Sutter Health.
That is the honest composition of the market: commercials, industrials, unscripted and independent features, with an occasional studio production passing through. Note also that the list stops at 2024. There are no 2025 or 2026 entries on it, so treat anything described as recent with the date attached.
Underneath that there is a genuine independent scene. Local filmmakers premiered En Memoria at Sundance in 2025, and a city-grant-supported documentary series premiered here in March 2026. The city funds this deliberately: production grants of up to $10,000 apiece, deadline the fifteenth of May, for projects filming at least half in the region.
The tax credit, explained the right way round
California expanded its film incentive in 2025 and every article about it tells Sacramento actors about the wrong number.
The programme is Program 4.0, expanded — not a new version 5.0, whatever a dozen law-firm blog posts say. On 1 July 2025 the annual cap went from $330 million to $750 million. It runs for five years, to a sunset on 30 June 2030. The credits also became refundable for the first time since the scheme began in 2009.
Sacramento sits roughly 385 road miles from the Los Angeles zone, which is a thirty-mile circle drawn from Beverly and La Cienega. Being outside it earns a production an extra five per cent, and that five per cent is the thing every article mentions.
There is a second uplift worth ten per cent, and it applies to qualified wages for California residents who both live outside and work outside the Los Angeles zone. That is you.
So the five per cent is a reason to bring a production to Sacramento. The ten per cent is a reason to hire somebody who already lives in Sacramento rather than flying one up from Burbank. One of those changes where a shoot happens. The other changes who gets cast in it.
Nobody frames it that way, and it is the strongest financial argument for staying put that a Northern California actor has.
Two caveats, because the detail matters if you are going to repeat this to anyone. Independent films and animation are excluded from the out-of-zone uplift as written — the five per cent targets studio features and television. And do not let anyone tell you the rates stack to a headline number. No combined ceiling is stated in the guidelines, and we could not confirm that one exists elsewhere.
The theatre route, which is where the contracts are
If you want to be paid a published weekly minimum for acting in this city, this section is the answer, and it starts with a correction.
What remains is three companies, all of them Equity houses, and all three hold real auditions in Sacramento.
Broadway Sacramento — Broadway At Music Circus
The contractSpecial Agreement, $1,385 weekly minimum at 2025 rates.
The callA genuine local Sacramento open Equity audition, held in the autumn at the UC Davis Health Pavilion on H Street. Sheet music in your key, accompanist provided, stapled headshot and résumé.
Worth knowingThey took sole operation of the 15th and H Street complex and went year-round from December 2024, which is why there is more work here than there was. They also run auditions in New York, so the local call competes with that.
B Street Theatre, at The Sofia
The contractIndependent Theater Contract at $973 weekly minimum, or Theatre for Young Audiences at $633 to $658 plus a two per cent media bump.
The callLocal Equity auditions in December for the following year's seasons. Two contemporary one-minute monologues, stapled headshot and résumé, appointments by email.
The catchAn Equity card is required and their published notice makes no mention of a non-union route. We are not going to imply there is one.
Capital Stage
The contractSmall Professional Theatre tier six, $605 weekly minimum.
The callLate May, annually, which means you can plan around it. Two contrasting monologues, three minutes maximum.
The one that mattersNon-union actors are seen. Union performers request appointment slots; everyone else is seen in order of arrival, as space allows. That is the clearest published answer to that question anywhere in this city.
Capital Stage also runs an apprentice programme. Six months minimum, twelve preferred, with a weekly stipend of $250 to $350. Applications close at the end of May. And Broadway Sacramento launched a conservatory alongside its expansion, teaching musical theatre from age twelve.
One practical instruction that will save you more time than anything else in this section. Every Sacramento Equity notice we verified appeared on the national audition listings first. Several of the company websites are badly out of date. Watch the Equity listings, not the theatres.
Where Sacramento casting notices actually appear
Start with the thing that does not exist, because assuming it does is what wastes the first month.
Sacramento has a city film office. It is called Sacramento Film + Media, it issues the permits, it runs the grant and rebate programmes, and it keeps directories of crew and support services.
It does not publish casting calls. It does not publish a shooting schedule. It does not publish a list of productions in town. There is no local number to ring and ask what is filming. Part of the reason is structural. The region is split across eight separate permitting jurisdictions. A shoot described as being in Sacramento may be permitted by Folsom, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova or the county.
So the notices come from these five places instead, in the order we would check them.
1. The union's own Northern California casting list
What it isA vetted list of casting directors working this region, maintained by SAG-AFTRA. Not a job board — a list of who to submit to.
Why it is firstBecause the union maintains it, which is a standard no listicle meets. It names two casting offices in the Sacramento area and one in Roseville, plus the Bay Area offices that cast Northern California shoots.
2. Casting Networks
What it isThe main commercial platform for this region.
The useful detailOne of the largest Bay Area casting offices states on its own site that it posts its jobs on Casting Networks and on its own Facebook page. That is where a lot of Northern California background and commercial work surfaces first.
The cautionIts Sacramento landing page aggregates broadly, and the projects shown are not necessarily shooting here.
3. Actors Access
What it isBreakdown Services, with a dedicated San Francisco and Northern California region rather than a Sacramento one.
Being honestWhen we looked, that region held two dozen projects across five months, mostly non-union with several SAG-AFTRA, and none of them was specifically a Sacramento shoot. It is worth watching. It is not full of local work.
4. The Equity audition listings
What it isThe national listings where theatre calls are posted.
Why it matters hereEvery Sacramento Equity notice we verified appeared there first, including all three theatres above. For stage work this beats checking company websites.
5. Direct submission
What it isRegistering with the casting offices and the agency that work this region, rather than waiting for a posting.
Why it works hereIn a market of 83 filming days a year, the casting directors are a small, findable group. Being on their list is worth more than refreshing a feed.
Representation, and which union local you are in
Two answers here, and one of them we have to give you with a caveat attached.
Sacramento has no SAG-AFTRA local of its own. You are covered by the San Francisco and Northern California Local, whose jurisdiction runs, in its own words, from Fresno to the Oregon border. The office is on Sansome Street in San Francisco. There is no Sacramento office and no dedicated Sacramento staff contact listed.
On agents, there is one Sacramento-headquartered talent agency we could verify as currently operating. It was founded in 1991 and its site is current. It takes submissions online only, then invites applicants to a video interview. It asks that you live within a two-hour drive of Sacramento or San Francisco. No submission fee is stated.
We also found no second Sacramento-headquartered agency with a genuine current web presence. That is not proof there is only one. It means there is only one we would put in front of you.
Whether you have to leave
This is the real question underneath most searches on this subject, and the answer turns on one fact that is almost never written down.
The Bay Area is a day trip. Los Angeles is not.
The Capitol Corridor train runs from Sacramento to Emeryville in about an hour and forty minutes, with a short transfer into San Francisco. By car it is somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours on Interstate 80, depending on what the Bay Bridge is doing. Either way you can take a morning audition in San Francisco and be home for dinner.
Los Angeles is roughly 385 miles and the better part of six hours. That is a flight or an overnight, not a Tuesday.
The Bay Area is your second market and it is genuinely reachable. Treat San Francisco casting offices as local, because for the purposes of a self-tape and an occasional callback, they are.
And remember the ten per cent from earlier. A production filming out of zone earns an uplift on wages paid to California residents who live and work outside the Los Angeles zone. Moving to Los Angeles does not just cost you rent. It removes the one line in the tax code that makes you cheaper to hire on the shoots that come to you.
Staying is not the cautious option. On the numbers, it is a position.
The one rule that catches almost every scam
Sacramento is a smaller market, which makes it a good market to be preyed on in, because there is less around to compare a bad offer against.
The test is the same one that works everywhere. A legitimate agency makes money when you work. It takes a commission out of what you earn. Anything that makes money whether or not you ever book a job is in a different business, and California law treats it as one.
The state prohibits advance-fee talent representation services. Licensed talent agencies procure employment and commission from it. Counselling, listing and training services are a separate, bonded category with their own rules. The line is not the existence of a fee. It is whether somebody is charging you for access to work.
We have written up how that is enforced, and what the penalties are, in full elsewhere. It applies to every open call in the state, not only to this city.
Grading the sources
A page whose main claim is that other pages are out of date has an obligation to show where every figure came from.
Sacramento is the seat of state government, so the obvious thought is that there must be a route into agency video, public-service announcements and training films. We went looking for one and found nothing public. No register, no talent pool, no application.
What exists is a chain, and it is worth understanding even though it is indirect. A state agency puts a marketing or production contract out to competitive bid. An advertising agency or production company wins it. That company hires a casting director. The casting director casts the job. You reach it by being known to casting directors, not by registering with the state.
And a caution against assuming it stays local: casting for one California public health campaign was run by a company in Glendale, posting on social media. State work is not automatically Sacramento work.
Where we differ from the standard account
Is there acting work in Sacramento?
Commonly saidIt is a growing market with the tax credit bringing productions north.
What we foundEighty-three filming days in 2025, and 1,351 out-of-zone days in the entire state. Real, small, and mostly commercials and industrials.
Where do I audition for theatre here?
Commonly saidLists that still include Sacramento Theatre Company.
What we foundIt closed in November 2024. Three Equity houses remain, and all three hold local calls.
Can a non-union actor get seen?
Commonly saidUsually left vague.
What we foundCapital Stage sees non-union actors in order of arrival, as space allows. That is published, and it is a real answer.
What does the tax credit do for me?
Commonly saidFive per cent extra for filming outside Los Angeles.
What we foundThe ten per cent local hire uplift is the one attached to your wages. It is the argument for staying, and almost nobody makes it.
Should I move to Los Angeles?
Commonly saidEventually, if you are serious.
What we foundThe Bay Area is ninety minutes by train and is your real second market. Los Angeles is a flight, and moving there costs you the local hire uplift.
Where is the Sacramento casting list?
Commonly saidCheck the film office.
What we foundThe film office publishes permits and directories, not casting calls. No local feed exists.
Can I get cast in state government videos?
Commonly saidAssumed, because it is the capital.
What we foundNo public route we could find. It runs through bid contracts and casting directors, and some of it casts out of Los Angeles.
How much do Sacramento actors make?
Commonly saidFigures from salary aggregators.
What we foundNo survey exists. The only real numbers here are the published theatre minimums, and those are on this page.
Do one thing this week. Open the union's Northern California casting list. Find the three offices that work this region, and register with all of them properly. In a market of 83 filming days a year, being on a short list is worth more than being fast.