Complaint Review: John Robert Powers - JRP - Fargo North Dakota

my 12 year old daughter came to me talking about this "great opportunity" to go on an audition for some pretty known TV shows like "Hanna Montana" and the "Suite life of zak and codey". she said the director of these shows will be doing the audition and how they've come all the way from LA to conduct these auditions.

obviously i was suspicious. i'm from New Jersey and we are suspicious of everything that can sound too good to be true.. i'm sure a lot of other here were feeling the same but still thought what's to lose!

first question in my mind was that why should the director of a show like that come all the way to "fargo, ND" in dead of winter for a period of over 2 weeks to find a kid to play a role in some tv show. shouldn't he/she be busy somewhere "directing" something instead of choosing wanna be actors?

being in the advertising business i know first hand that actors and models are not hard to find and they are actually very cheap to hire.. there is just simply too many of them and a lot of "aspiring" actors are serving tables and doing all sorts of other jobs just to pay the bills.. the very few that get lucky and make it big really need a big connection, a lot of personality and a good reservoir of money for the rainy days. afterall is there now a shortage of wanna be's in LA or Disney.

and then there were the phone calls to remind me of the appointment.. twice they called to make sure i was going... that didn't make sense to me.. if they were so in demand and so many hundreds and hundreds of kids were standing in long lines for these auditions .. why did they care if one didn't show up?? what's in it for them basically?

i talked about it to my friend who lives in miami and she warned me saying it's a scam.. they'll just get you to sign up for acting classes which are quite expensive too. she's spent so much money on this kind of BS and her son never turned out to be an actor or learn anything useful.

so, today, i went to the so-called audition knowing pretty well that this was not really an audition for casting.. but just an acting school tyring to lure people into signing up as many kids as possible for acting classes.. and that alone pissed me off because it's such a sneaky way to conduct business.. it's just WRONG... plus they ask the participants to bring 2 photos and to dress "upscale" and not to come in geans and tshirts or sneakers...

now the participants were anywhere from 4 year olds to 17 year olds. i guess this suggested that the event was "high class" and the expectations were high! of course this was no high class event.. it was held in no 4 star hotel.. they had rented out a corner in an auditarium... just a bunch of chairs.. a small and very unprofessional looking video camera supposidly recording the kid's 30 seconds audition.

i still agreed to take my daughter to this audition because i didn't want her to think i denied her the opportunity of her lifetime... but i did warn her about it.. and that how this is most probably a school trying to sign up some students. she was still pshyced like many others that were there. some kids and their parents were really thinking this was the deal..

i could see parents trying to couch their kids. making them to memorize the lines and so on. well i guess mostly because the crew of JRP put up a show about how fun and lucrative the business can be... didn't take long when they started talking about how becoming perfect at any job requires practice and training for this job is no different..that's when i knew, yep, that's it.. this is the same ripoff my friend was talking about. issue is that in none of their tv or radio ads it was mentioned that they are NOT an agency but a school.. and now that i'm reading about them it appears that they're not even doing a good job at training actors. or even keeping their classes open.

after about waiting for 2 hours finally my daughter went for her audition.. and i should admit she was no hollywood or disney material... i don't think she'll ever be able to act even if her life depends on it..of course i told her that she did well. so even against her not so optimal performance i was told that that i should sign her up for training.

oh by the way on question on the application was: "what's your occupation" i suppose that's for them to size you up.

i did not show any interest but i was still told that i'll be contacted the day after in regard to my daughter's "acceptance". i think they will call EVERY ONE regardless and give them hope and therefore lead them onto this path where you have to constantly pour money in and get no real reasults. my idea is that if any kid has a natural talent for this type of stuff then they should be paid to improve and work not to pay thousands and thousands in hope for something that might never happen. i just told my daughter that why not going to a performing art school for undergrad degree when time comes and she's still interested.

after the audition i got to talk to my friend in miami again.. and she said mentioned the name of the school she has suied.. of course it's JRP... she said she has suied them for $10,000. because after 2 years of workshops her son never received a certificate or any type of paper confirming that he'd attended these classes. she was also told that there will be only 7 students in each classroom... but she once sneacked in the classroom and noticed there were about 40 kids there doing nothing to help them with their acting. she also mentioned that the parents are not allowed into the classrooms.

so i'm glad that i heard about all this and found this website before i end up becoming another victim of JRP... of course .. there is no way i would pay that kind of money for this type of deal... but i just don't understand why some official tv and radio stations run these ads for JRP without checking out the legitimacy of these companies... of course they don't care becuase they get paid for the air time they sell.

i'm supposed to be contacted tomorrow by JRP.. i think i'll just tell them that i heard and read some very negative things about them cause i don't want them to keep calling and bugging me.

Sp

fargo, North Dakota

U.S.A.