Beyond "Assistant": Craft a Job Title that Gets You Noticed in the Entertainment Industry

🌟Career Coaching: Your job title is the most important element of your branding. Make sure it's working for you.

The Broadway show was Andre Heller’s Wonderhouse. It was an unusual attraction led by Billy Barty. In the play, Billy’s character assembles his wife’s favorite vaudeville acts as a surprise for her 70th birthday. The talent roster included a whistler, a shadow puppeteer, a dance duo, a paper sculptor and several magic acts. One of these—Milo & Roger—made ducks disappear.

The show was short-lived. Mel Gussow’s review in The New York Times said “the only wonder is that the show managed to get to Broadway.” He mentions that the ducks upstaged their handlers.

It took months to get the government to greenlight the import of the diva ducks from their native Thailand. Somewhere in my possession is the card—issued by the US Department of Agriculture—stating that I was wholly responsible for the ducks while they were on American soil. They were forbidden to come into contact with any other animal. They were not allowed to visit any parks or farms, but oddly could have gone to the Brooklyn Museum to see “Mosaic Duck Facing Right.”

Roman, 6th century CE, “Mosaic Duck Facing Right” at the Brooklyn Museum

I was the only Duck Wrangler on Broadway that season, but I never wanted to be known for that bit of expertise. We all do a lot of crazy things in showbiz. Over the years, I have been a courier of tap shoes, a fire department inspection wizard, a therapist to writers and a cash flow magician, among so many others. Those are not job titles you’d put on a resume. They are not even good fodder for the Headline on LinkedIn and other platforms. So what titles do work?